Media Update from MDOE: Laptops, music, Orono – May 24th
What do you get when you put 1,000 students with laptops in the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine in Orono? Music, literally.
This year’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative Student Conference will feature an “uber session” in which students will turn their laptop keyboards into musical keyboards and perform a world premiere musical composition, along with 12 live musicians on stage, and two members of the New World Symphony playing live from Miami. Each student has used software available on their MLTI devices to pre-program their machine to create their own recording of a full octave of notes – using anything from the sounds of birds to objects around the house or digita sounds of their own making. MLTI staff will capture the culminating performance and release audio and video to the public shortly after the performance.
Highlights
9:10 – 10:25 a.m. Three student keynote speakers will address the entire gathering. These student presentations are typically well polished and inspiring and help illustrate the ways in which technology can enhance the learning experience for students. Tim Walsh, a freshman at Kennebunk High School, will share how he leveraged his access to his MLTI MacBook to become a design professional along with a team at Middle School of the Kennebunks. Emily & Katie Morse, juniors at Machias High School, are studying Japanese to meet their world language graduation requirement at Machias High, and they are doing it online through Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah via their MLTI MacBooks, and will talk about their experience.
10:40 – 11:40 a.m. Morning sessions on everything from video game design with Scratch (software) to tips on using Garage Band to developing smartphone apps and searching for planets. These sessions are held around campus.
1 -2 p.m. The uber-session, described above. The students are always pretty jazzed about this session (the activity varies each year) and from a photo perspective, you’re not likely to find better than this – with 1,000 students gathered with their laptops and working collaboratively on a project. (Tech geek note: getting the two live musicians from Miami linked in is a huge technical achievement requiring a robust network infrastructure implemented by Networkmaine specifically for the event. While there will be a slight delay in the video, the audio will be precisely in time with the group at UMO, something that was formerly almost impossible to execute.)
You might also want to catch up with the student tweeters: Students from Auburn Middle school will be live-tweeting the entire conference using the Twitter hashtag #mlti2012
Now a decade old, MLTI puts laptops in the hands of all Maine seventh and eighth graders and a majority of high-school students. The program focuses not on the technology itself, but on using technology as an integral part of student learning.
DETAILS AND MORE INFO
WHAT
9th annual Maine Learning Technology Initiative Student Conference
View the schedule of events: http://www.maine.gov/mlti/studentconference/index.shtml
WHERE
University of Maine at Orono
WHEN
Thursday, May 24, roughly 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Suggested events, as noted above, at 9:10 a.m. (Collins Center), 10:40 a.m. (various) and 1 p.m. (Collins Center)
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