560 Middle School Students, Teachers at UMaine Friday for Laptop Conference
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) and the University of Maine’s Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering will host Maine’s fourth annual MLTI Student Tech Team Conference on Friday, June 1 at UMaine. The conference will feature a variety of hands-on activities related to the MLTI iBook laptops used at Maine’s middle schools. Some 560 participants are expected for the conference, which runs from 8:15 a.m.-2:40 p.m at various UMaine locations.
Participants will learn about how to organize or improve Student Tech Teams, which many schools use to support laptop-related teaching and learning activities. They will also gain opportunities to network with other students from around Maine, to acquire specific technical and interpersonal skills related to participation in Student Tech Teams and they will have the opportunity to access resources that are unique to UMaine.
Some 44 schools, representing all parts of Maine, are registered for the conference. Twenty-seven different sessions are on the schedule, and students will have the opportunity to participate in three sessions each.
One example is “Oh My Goodness! I blew up the Screen!” with Prof. Bruce Segee from UMaine’s Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In this session, participants will team up to collectively use their laptops to display large images in a tiled display, using high resolution visualization. This session is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., 10:40 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Room 133 Barrows Hall.
Other workshops focus on specific uses for the Apple software and products related to the student laptops. A full schedule with session descriptions is online.