Bring your favorite tech tool to share or an idea to showcase and help us plan our  holiday wish lists….
Food & Soda provided by PAECT

Please RSVP for planning purposes
& bring a friend or 2….”there’s room for everyone on the nice list”

Check out this great read 70+ Gift Ideas for Kids of All Ages (just to get you started)

Mark your calendar for these special PAECT events…

Reception:  Monday, June 27, 5:30-8:00. PAECT and NYSCATE invite you to a joint reception at The Field House Sports Bar and Grill, 1150 Filbert Street. Use this time to network, reconnect, refresh and let loose with friends and colleagues. Good food, good drink, and good prizes.
RSVP and be eligible for a special drawing at the reception. Thanks to our sponsors Pearson, Study Island, and CDWG.

Booth: Please stop by the PAECT booth on the Affiliate Row to say hi and reconnect. Consider being a volunteer at the PAECT booth, the PAECT Room, and ISTE. Go to http://paect.org.

First Time at ISTE? Information with a Pennsylvania Focus! Monday, 6/27/2011, 4:15pm–5:15pm PACC 115B Is this your first ISTE conference? If you are a Pennsylvania educator, stop by and learn how to get the most from the ISTE conference while it’s here in Philadelphia. Learn what’s special for PA folks. Hosted by PAECT.

PAECT Regional Director Meet & Greet Tuesday, June 28th from 3:45- 4:45 in Room 115B.   Pre-register by noon Tuesday, June 28th and attend the session for a chance to win a special regional gift (1 prize per region)  At the event you will also receive a ticket for our “pick a prize auction” with prizes including an iPad, iPod Touch, LiveScribe Pen Set, Color Nook, Kindle & Acer Iconia Tablet.  Increase your chances of winning, by attending special PAECT events throughout the conference and collect additional tickets to win:

• Bring     a friend to Tuesday’s special event and you will receive 1 ticket     for you and 1 for your friend.
• Visit     the PAECT Affiliate booth for and you will receive a ticket and     since membership has its privileges…join PAECT     or verify your membership while at the booth for an additional     ticket.

• Check     in with your Region Director during the PAECT/NYSCATE Reception     Monday Evening at the Field House.
• Don’t     forget to visit PA room on Monday or Tuesday during one of our     special session and meet the PAECT     volunteer.
• There     will be additional opportunities to collect tickets during the     session.

That’s right, you can earn up to 5 tickets ahead of time, but you must be present to win.   So REGISTER TODAY and plan to come discuss ways to Connect, Develop, Lead, and Advocate with PAECT. PreRegister for a chance to win a special prize http://tinyurl.com/paectregion11

Share your ISTE moment with PAECT, and you might be published in our August Newsletter. Tell us about an experience you had, a session you attended, or some other way you were impacted. You can share your ISTE moment by clicking on the link below at any time after the conference starts to participate in this survey, and then watch for our August Newsletter to see if your ISTE moment is selected for publication. Click this link to share.

The PAECT website http://paect.org will be going through a major overhaul this summer.  You may have already noticed many new features and ways to connect.  We will be formally launching the new site closer to the start of the 2011/2012 school year along with short training videos and other resources to help you make the best use of the site.  We will also make our iPhone App available around this same time.  Until the formal launch, feel free to experiment with new features as they are added.

Please consider volunteering some of your time to help support our organization

——————-Repost of ISTE SIGTE email recieved 5-19————————–

Federal funding for fiscal year 2011 has eliminated allocations for Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT). That battle is over and a new one begins. It is now more important than ever for us to add our voices to the call for funding for educational technology in the 2012 federal budget process. We are asking that SIGTE members:

1. Please join the Advocacy group on the ISTE ning at http://www.iste-community.org/group/isteadvocacy

2. Please contact your state legislators through the ED Tech Action Network (ETAN) at http://www.edtechactionnetwork.org/ The message should be direct: Educational technology funding is essential to learning and preparing students to live and work in the 12st Century. Please specifically request support for allocation of funds for EETT in the 2012 budget at levels sufficient to sustain the advances made to date. Please also include any personal stories or knowledge of instances in which technology in classrooms or schools has enhanced the community in which the legislator’s constituents live and work.

3. With the elimination of funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program for FY 11, we are likely to start hearing of programs or activities that will be ended or modified, jobs that will be lost, etc. Please post stories of these or any other impact that you know about for the upcoming school year at the building level, district level or state level to the discussion posted on the ISTE advocacy community Ning. You can also email these to SIGTEAdvocacy @ gmail.com. It is important that we start collecting stories about the impact of this funding elimination so pass this request and email address along to anyone you know who might have a story to tell.

4. Please consider volunteering for the ETAN booth at this year’s ISTE conference in Philadelphia. To register for this volunteer activity, please go to: www.surveymk.com/s/ETANBooth_ISTE2011

Our Tech Potluck event in April was enjoyed by all attendees!  PAECT sponsored the snacks from Jo Jo’s Java Joint, and boy were they delicious!  We had open conversations about tech tools in a casual, fun environment.  Multiple people collaborated on a Googledoc during the event so attendees could have a list of all the tools that were discussed!  Conversations were informal so everyone felt comfortable asking questions about specific tech tools.  One of the highlights was when Rosie brought out her Mary Poppins bag full of cheap tech trinkets to share her various ways of staying organized.  We learned about the power of the Dollar Store!  As seen in the Wordle above, ‘sharing’ was everyone’s favorite part of the day.

The conference will be free from corporate vendors and booths, with the focus being solely on conversations about education. Attendees will come from all over the East Coast and will range from classroom teachers to administrators to coaches and school board members. There will be time for attendees to gather informally to share ideas as well as a variety of sessions for them to attend, run by their colleagues and fellow educators.

This second-annual event is based on the barcamp model, also known as an unconference (http://barcamp.org). An unconference is:

an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment; and
a conversational event featuring discussions, demos and interactions between participants, rather than a group of people listening to a particular speaker.

The organizers of edcamp Philly met at BarCamp Philly (http://www.barcampphilly.org) in November 2009, ran a session together and fell in love with the model and its potential for teacher professional development. They immediately began pulling together ideas for their own, education-centered barcamp conference. They dropped the ‘bar’ wording (which refers to computer programming language) and replaced it with ‘ed,’ referring to the event’s K-12 education focus.

edcamp Philly is completely free, with all refreshments and other amenities provided solely through sponsorship. PAECT is proud to be one of those sponsors and I for one am REALLY looking forward to the learning!

For additional information about this event, contact Mary Beth Hertz or visit http://www.edcampphilly.org.

Click here to see the flyer

Event is on April 10th from 1 to 4 pm at
Jo Jo’s Java Joint 14 W. Butler Avenue
Ambler, PA, 19002
(267) 470-4720

Agenda:
1:00 – 1:45 – Meet and Greet
1:45 – 2:00 – Introductions
2:00 – 3:30 – Technology Pot Luck
*Share a favorite tool or ask a question of the group*
3:30 – 4:00 – Reflect and Wrap Up

We hope to see you there!
Click here to RSVP

Brandon Lutz
Event Leader
blutz01@gmail.com

Sunday February 13th

Monday February 14th
Everyone is invited to the Regional Directors’ reception  from 6:00-7:00 pm on Monday February 14th in the Hershey Lodge President’s Suite (Suite 3338/9). Come meet up with fellow PAECT members and your regional directors from your region of the state for light fare and conversation from 6:00 – 7:00 PM. If you are unable to make the Region Directors’ reception, you can catch up with us at the President’s Reception starting at 9 pm in the Hershey Lodge President’s Suite (Suite 3338/9).

Tuesday February 15th
Chief Technology Leaders – SIG of PAECT (CoSN state chapter meeting) 12:30 pm
RSVP at the PAECT booth across from conference registration on Monday

PAECT Awards Dinner Tuesday, Feb 15 6:30 pm Empire Rooms ABC
General annual meeting followed by dinner and then PAECT awards. Use your PETE & C Banquet ticket to come celebrate with your peers the many accomplishments done throughout the year!!

To help us in our planning, please let us know if you are able to join us for any (or all of these events)
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHRMb2lHaUpWZjZJanp6MHZoRjBTNVE6MA

And don’t forget…we can still use some volunteers…especially at the ETAN Booth helping to influence public policy-makers at the federal, state and local levels and to increase public investment in the competitiveness of America’s classrooms and students.

Register HERE to see what volunteer spots are still available and to sign up!

Lots to do at PETE&C!  We’ll see you in Hershey!