Just Back From TCEA

In early February I spent four days in Austin on the show floor of the 32nd TCEA Annual Convention and Exposition—one of the largest education tech conventions in the nation with thousands of attendees.

I interviewed several school administrators and found that quite a few of them were looking for affordable, innovative technology that they could take home and implement in their districts. Network analyst Neil Bolton from Cedar Hill (Texas) Independent School District says, “I’m looking to update our network infrastructure to launch a BYOD initiative soon. It was helpful to see the different types of instruction you can do with BYOD at TCEA.”

Among the information technology directors that I spoke with included TCEA Past President and IT director at Klein (Texas) Independent School District Candice Threadgil, who has taken many ideas from TCEA and incorporated them in her district back at home. “I always come away with a renewed spirit and tidbits of information I’ve never seen anywhere else before; it’s always a learning experience,” Threadgil says.

Here are some highlights from education technology vendors at TCEA 2012:

• CDI Computers is working to become an even more meaningful player in the education space, and the launch of Fiddlehead is the first step in a plan that will include other hardware software solutions for K12 and higher education. Fiddlehead computer sharing technology allows up to four users to work independently on a single computer with their own monitor, keyboard and mouse, which decreases the cost of a computer dramatically.

• HP rolls out 100 mobile thin client netbooks in Conroe (Texas) Independent School District in their new “web on wheels” program.
• MindPlay launches Virtual Reading Coach, which can help students increase their reading skills in 30 hours or less through differentiated instruction.
• Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards is now accepting entries for their global online media competition. Students can submit any of their digital work, including animation, a documentary or music videos. Applications are due by April 20. 
• Knovation, formerly netTrekker, releases iCurio, a digital curriculum content solution that delivers a comprehensive collection of 330,000 digital learning resources aligned to state and Common Core standards. 
• DimensionU, maker of multi-player education games, is getting students excited about math, encouraging families to collaborate with their student at home and putting the student in control.
• PresenceLearning proves to be an effective virtual speech language pathologist (SLP) as users make more progress than students working with traditional SLP. (Source: U.S. Department of Education)
• iParadigm’s Turnitin allows teachers to drag and drop comments to make grading papers easier, makes peer review anonymous and simple and matches translated text in eight languages.