ICE Conference 2010 is still months away, but the ICE Conference planning committee is already hard at work with a goal of making our upcoming conference the biggest and best ever. One of the first tasks of the members of the conference program sub-committee each year is to select the individuals who will be the featured keynote speakers on Thursday and Friday. These nationally known speakers are often in high demand, and so our committee members always act quickly in order to secure the services of individuals who will deliver an interesting and engaging message to our members.

We are extremely pleased that one of our keynote speakers at ICE Conference 2010 will be Dr. Robert Marzano, a nationally recognized authority on instructional design and research that reflects best practices for enhancing student achievement. Dr. Marzano is a leading researcher in education and is the author of more than 30 books and 150 articles on topics such as instruction, assessment, writing and implementing standards, cognition, effective leadership, and school intervention. His books include Designing & Teaching Learning Goals & Objectives, District Leadership That Works, Designing & Assessing Educational Objectives, Making Standards Useful in the Classroom, and The Art and Science of Teaching. Click this link for more information about the Marzano Research Laboratory.

Dr. Marzano will do the keynote presentation on Friday, February 26, and then do spotlight presentations later in the day so that interested ICE members can learn more about his research and his professional development programs. We are excited that he will be able to join us at our conference next February, and we hope that you will make plans to attend.

As you may know, the Illinois Computing Educators organization has partnered over the past three years with two other professional organizations – The Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO) and the Illinois Chief Technology Officers (IL-CTO) – to host an annual event called TechCon. I am pleased to announce that plans are being finalized for the 3rd annual conference to be held on October 16, 2009, at the Naperville campus of Northern Illinois University. Meg Ormiston is scheduled to be the featured speaker, and the program also includes presentations by members of the three host organizations. Charlene Chausis, Phil Lacey, and Nadine Norris will present sessions on behalf of the Illinois Computing Educators. You can view more information about the event and the presentation topics by visiting the TechCon home page.

Technology is changing society and education. From business managers to technology directors, investment in technology will change the future of learning. As access moves faster than understanding, education professionals must keep pace. These three leading education organizations have created an event to meet these needs. This one-day conference addresses the single element effecting education across the board.

Event: 3rd Annual TechCon: Technology and Financial Issues for the 21st Century Conference.
Date: Friday, October 16, 2009
Location: NIU/Naperville Campus

TechCon 2009 will be held at the Naperville Campus of Northern Illinois University. This is a well-located Chicago Area Conference Center, easily accessible from Interstates 88 and 355, only 27 miles from both O'Hare and Midway International Airports, and less than five miles from the Metra Train Station. The facility is located at 1120 E. Diehl Road, Naperville, IL 60563. The conference planners have selected this site because they are confident that the facilities are ideally suited for this event and that the location will be readily accessible to educators throughout the northern counties in Illinois.

Registration for TechCon is easy! Just click here to view the registration page on the Illinois ASBO's Web site and then follow the instructions on the web page. A confirmation e-mail will be sent once your registration is complete. Illinois ASBO members can use existing member information to complete registration. Non-Illinois ASBO members that have not previously attended an Illinois ASBO function will need to complete a quick "new customer" form. Registration is facilitated by Illinois ASBO. Illinois ASBO members can also register through the normal seminar registration process that can be accessed by logging in at www.iasbo.org and clicking on the events link. Please call 815.753.9365 for any questions you may have regarding registration for this event.

Even though we are in the midst of summer breaks in most schools and districts, several of the ICE blog authors have been busy providing updates of planned events and information about chapter leaders who are making a difference in the lives of other ICE members. I encourage you to check out all of the ICE blogs by using the links in the right-hand column, but here are some of the highlights of the content of the ICE chapter blogs:

RICE: The Rock Island area chapter has already posted a schedule of events for the 2009-2010 school year including their first mini-conference to be held at the Moline ROE facilities on January 23, 2010. The RICE chapter leaders have also put out a call for newsletter articles for their upcoming issue. Click here or use the link in the right-hand column to learn more about the activities hosted by RICE.

NICE: ICE members in the northern Illinois chapter remain extremely active and the NICE chapter leaders have also posted their calendar of events for the upcoming school year. Topics for meetings this year include a "Share-o-Rama," "Internet Safety," "Google Apps Workshop," "Potpourri of Practical Programs," and their annual mini-conference in January. This link will take you directly to the NICE schedule for 2009-2010.

DeICE: The leaders of this chapter that serves ICE members in Joliet and surrounding areas are very interested in getting some new people involved in the organization. They are planning a session on Internet Safety and are looking for ideas for other topics that would be of interest to chapter members. Please visit the DeICE blog site for more information and to find out how you can get involved.

SpICE: Blog author Karen Thompson always has new information about technology resources on her site, and her most recent blog post is about Google Squared, a tool that will help you to organize research data into a table. Karen includes a short video clip that provides an overview of Google Squared, and she also provides some ideas as to how this tool might be used by teachers in the classroom. Click here to read more about this online resource.

ICE COLD: In her most recent blog post, Nadine Norris reminds us all that even in the world of ever-changing technology equipment and resources, talented and dedicated people are still the heart and soul of our organization. Nadine writes about Sister Mary Therese Freymann, a person who has dedicated her life to working with students and teachers in a variety of ways. She has been a dedicated member of ICE for many years and she has inspired many other people by her efforts and her positive attitude. If you have not had the pleasure of meeting and working with Sister Mary Therese, you own it to yourself to read the story that Nadine Norris has posted here.

As I noted above, we are still enjoying the warmth of summer, but the school year will be upon us soon. Please take time to learn more about the chapter activities in your region of the state and pledge to get involved this year. You will be happy that you did!

Have you ever considered leading a workshop at the ICE Conference? There are many valuable programs and activities each year at the conference, but the half-day and full-day workshops are certainly among the most valuable learning opportunities. If you have a good working knowledge of software applications or other technology resources and a passion to share your ideas with other educators, I would encourage you to consider becoming a workshop presenter.

Full-day workshops are scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday of the conference week and meet from 8:30 am-3:30 pm. This schedule gives presenters the opportunity to cover topics in much more detail than they could in the shorter breakout sessions later in the week, and it gives participants the time they need to practice the skills and techniques they have just learned. Topics for these all day sessions might include specific software applications, new and innovative lesson activities, emerging technologies, and new Web 2.0 tools and other web-based applications. ICE pays $350 to presenters who conduct full-day workshops.

Half-day workshops are scheduled on Thursday and Friday and meet from 10:00 am-12:30 pm. The format is similar to the all day workshops described above, but the time schedule is condensed so that participants can attend these special workshops and still have time to take advantage of some of the other conference activities. Thursday workshops are offered in labs that are equipped with laptop computers, while the Friday workshops are offered as “Bring Your Own Laptops (BYOL)” events so that participants can work on their own computers. Presenters who conduct half-day workshops are paid $175 and are also given free admission to all conference programs on the day that they present.

If you are interested, it is easy to sign up to be a workshop presenter. Just click the link below to go directly to the online proposal form or go to the ICE web site to access the form:

http://proposals.iceberg.org/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fDefault.aspx

We hope you will join us this year!

ICE Conference 2010: A Learning Odyssey is months away, but the process of building the program for the conference begins right now. We have been working with a new company that will assist us with all phases of our conference planning and management tasks, and we are ready to unveil the first segment of that new system—the online proposal submission tool.

If you are interested in being a presenter at our next ICE Conference, please click the link below to access the online submission form. Our first priority is to get a full schedule of full-day and half-day workshops in place, but we are also interested in developing a strong and diverse program of general breakout sessions and poster sessions:

Click Here to Be a Presenter

People who conduct full-day workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday are paid for their services and those who conduct half-day workshops on Thursday and Friday morning get free admission to the conference for the remainder of the day of the workshop.

If you have developed some successful technology-infused classroom activities that you would like to share with other educators or enjoy demonstrating some of the exciting features of software applications or new Web 2.0 tools, please consider signing up to present at the ICE Conference.

If you have presented in the past, you will see a few changes when you use our new online proposal submission tool. You will be asked to create a new user account the first time you access the system, but once you have done this, you will use the same log-in information each time you wish to add new proposals, edit existing proposals, or sign up for other conference-related activities.

The expertise and passion that our members bring to the ICE Conference make it one of the premier technology conferences in the nation. Please consider sharing your knowledge and help other educators to learn more about the many ways that technology resources can be implemented in their classrooms. Thanks—have a great summer!

Continuing in the pattern of steady growth that has characterized the ICE Conferences that have been held at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles in recent years, ICE Conference 2009 was the biggest event that ICE has ever hosted. We had over 1,800 attendees on Thursday alone and over 3,000 unique registrations for the entire conference. These are both new high water marks for our annual event. Many thanks are due to the large group of conference committee members, tech staff members, and ICE volunteers who worked hard to make sure that everything ran smoothly over the four days of workshops, breakout sessions, and special activities.

There were several new venues that were set up this year to offer additional information for attendees and to provide new opportunities to learn about emerging technologies. The ICE booth pictured above was expanded significantly and was filled with visitors throughout the conference. A new Thursday keynote luncheon event was held for the first time, and David Thornburg spoke to a sold-out audience at the Advanced Center for Training facility. The poster sessions, Assistive Technology Playground and Second Life Playground were all housed in the Marsalis Rooms near the Atrium this year, and the presenters were busy through all of the scheduled sessions on Thursday and Friday. Another new venue was the Personal Learning Network (PLN) Plaza near Preservation Hall, and it was also busy throughout the conference.

As noted above, special thanks go out to the dozens of committee members and volunteers who have met regularly since April, 2008, to plan and organize all of the procedures and activities that are essential for a successful conference. Each morning during the conference, an army of tech specialists wearing red shirts met to discuss the computer installations and network configurations that would be required to support the presentations and demonstrations for that day. In other locations around the conference center, dozens of ICE volunteers were helping attendees to get their materials and find the locations for the presentations they hoped to see.

ICE Conference 2009 is still fresh in our memories, yet the planning for the 2010 event will begin in just a few weeks. If you enjoyed the conference, please consider volunteering to help with next year's conference - "ICE Conference 2010: A Learning Odyssey." It promises to be bigger and better than ever!

Educators from all across the southern region of Illinois will gather in Mt. Vernon on October 30 and 31 for the 29th annual Mt. Vernon Conference. I am joined at this event by ICE past-president Kathleen Molloy and Mindy Fiscus, a member of the ICE Governing Board and one of the planners of the conference. Other Illinois educators with links to ICE who will give presentations include Luke Allen, Meg Ormiston, and Kurt Strothmann, and many ICE members will be present at the conference.

I will be representing ICE at the Mt. Vernon Conference and I will conduct two presentations titled, "Illinois Computing Educators: Growing and Evolving to Meet your needs. Kathleen and I will also be available at the ICE booth throughout the conference to explain the opportunities and benefits available to ICE members, and we will encourage attendees to sign up to join our organization.

We also have big plans to promote ICE at the upcoming IETC in Springfield in November, and we will continue to explore the possibilities of establishing new ICE chapters in regions of the state that are currently too distant from existing chapters.

ICE President Ginger Long and I are in Beardstown to represent our organization at the annual Regional Teacher Institute serving Brown, Cass, Morgan, and Scott Counties in the Western region of Illinois. We will set up an ICE booth to invite the educators in attendance to learn more about the programs and benefits that we offer, and we will each present breakout sessions as part of the Institute program. The keynote speaker is Christopher Koch, State Superintendent of Schools.

This teacher institute is the first of a series of events across the state in the next two months in which members of the ICE Executive Board will join me to promote ICE activities. On October 17, Kathleen Molloy and I will join leaders of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO) and the Illinois Chief Technology Officers (IL-CTO) to host the second annual TechCon conference in Naperville. Kathleen and I will travel to Mt. Vernon on October 30 and 31 for the 29^th annual teacher conference coordinated by Mindy Fiscus and her colleagues at ROE 25 in Hamilton County and Jefferson County. Finally, several members of the ICE Executive Board will represent our organization at the 15^th annual IETC Conference in Springfield on November 20 and 21. ICE is a Gold Sponsor for the event and we hope to see many of our members at this great conference.

Remember that even though ICE Conference 2009 is still months away, registration for the conference will open in just a few weeks. Watch the ICE web site for more information.