Post Conference Resource List

Explore. Dream. Discover.
2006 National Educational Computing ConferenceSan Diego, CA •

July 5–7, 2006 http://iste-listserver.iste.org/t/5779/379675/1/0/



Dear NECC 2006 Attendee:

Congratulations on having joined nearly 17,000 fellow educators and exhibitors in San Diego! The gathering of so many diverse yet equally passionate educators is what makes NECC such a success. The time and energy you invested in your professional development will provide dividends throughout the school year.

Following is a list of postconference resources you can use to extend your conference experience into the new academic year or share with colleagues who were unable to attend. Click on the titles for more information.

NECC 2006 Conference Evaluation
You have through Monday, July 31, to complete the online conference evaluation. Give us your input about activities for next year’s conference in Atlanta as well as what we’ve done well and what you’d like to see strengthened. As a thank-you for taking the time to give us your feedback, we will enter you into a drawing for one of four 30 GB Video iPods.------------------------------------

Take the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Online Customer Survey!
The Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education encouraged NECC participants to share their experiences and opinions through focus groups, interviews, and an online survey. The online survey will close on Thursday, August 3. Don’t miss this opportunity to help shape future federal educational technology activities! ------------------------------------

Presenter Handouts & Research Papers
More than 330 presenters submitted handouts for their workshops and sessions, including Research Papers. Here you’ll find details on how to use the Program Search to find handouts of particular interest to you.------------------------------------

Video-on-Demand Sessions at NECC
Fourteen sessions were videotaped at NECC, as well as eleven interviews, including Keynote Nicholas Negroponte. All 25 videos are available for one year, through June 24, 2007, thanks to a partnership with KZO Webcasting.------------------------------------

Podcast Sessions at NECC
Eighteen sessions were podcast with production support from the team of Apple Distinguished Educators, and are available through the iTunes Education directory.
In addition, the NECC 2006 Poster Session Co-chairs, Kurt Larsen and Pamela Redmond, recorded a number of poster sessions and have made them available at
http://iste-listserver.iste.org/t/5779/379675/300/0/.------------------------------------

Conference Database of Events
Our online searchable conference database will remain archived at this site for one year; combined with the above resources, it provides you the proceedings of the conference and a year-round resource to tap into.------------------------------------

eSchool News Conference Information Center
Your fellow attendees submitted session reviews to the eSchool News Conference Information Center; you can access these reviews for one full year following the conference.------------------------------------

Blogging NECC
Even if you didn’t keep up with the blogosphere during the conference, it’s not too late to check out what some of your fellow educators had to say about their NECC experiences.------------------------------------

NECC Daily Leader Newsletter
PDFs are available of each day’s NECC Daily Leader, the newsletter distributed onsite at NECC.------------------------------------

Welcome, New ISTE Members!
If you decided to extend your NECC experience year-round by becoming an ISTE member, thank you and welcome! In the coming weeks, you’ll receive a new member welcome letter in the mail that includes a summary of your benefits as well as your member number. Your member periodical(s) will be mailed to you when the next issue is published: look for the Journal of Research on Technology in Education (JRTE) around the end of August; Learning & Leading with Technology (L&L) will arrive around September 1. For more information about how to make the most of your ISTE membership, visit For New Members on the ISTE Web site.------------------------------------

Submit a Proposal for NECC 2007
Plan now to join us in Atlanta, June 24–27, for NECC 2007—Learning and Leading with Technology. Make it the best NECC yet—submit a proposal! We’re specifically interested in technology’s role in developing 21st Century learners. The online submission form will go live Tuesday, September 6, 2006; the firm deadline for proposal submissions is Wednesday, October 4.


We were pleased to meet so many of you in San Diego, and look forward to continuing the Ed Tech conversation in Atlanta!
Leslie S. Conery, PhDNECC 2006 Conference Chair
Donella EvoniukNECC Conference Director



The National Educational Computing Conference (NECC)175 West Broadway, Suite 300, Eugene, Oregon 97401-30031710 Rhode Island Ave NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20036neccinfo@iste.org • 1.800.280.6218 •

http://iste-listserver.iste.org/t/5779/379675/6/0/

Presented by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) In cooperation with the California Computer-Using Educators (CUE)

NECC06 Day 3: Goodbye San Diego

Goodbye San Diego!

Today was vendor visits and a trip to La Jolla for a kayaking adventure where we saw a dolphin, Garibaldi fish, pelicans, stingrays, cormorants and a leopard shark.

On the tech side it was swag day with vendor visits. It gets overwhelming – fast. I agree with some of the posts that it is hard to cut through the junk and the sales pitches to just get info you want but they are all here. The things that made it into the going home swag bag or swag head are:

1) Best Buy sells the commercial Dance Dance Revolution Pads for $700 each and w/ two you can have kids play against each other. I think we are missing the boat here as another way to get kids moving.
2) Inspire-Data is an impressive new data analysis tool from the Kidspiration/Inspiration folks.
3) School Locker web base 100 meg storage for kids, 1 gig for teachers, $1/per user as show promotion.
4) Web based typing program - $250
5) There are at least 6 vendors for response systems but really none made especially for K4.
6) Kurzwiel has a new version the 3000 series.
7) Tapeless Backup systems were much cheaper than we thought and can use backup Exec.
8) Thin client Linux has sound problems.
9) Smart Tech was a big player here.
10) I did not get to see the updated versions of Bailey’s Bookhouse, Millie, Sammy, etc. Riverdeep booth was mobbed.
11) Folks from netTrekker showed me a “refined search’ option that allows searching by lexile scores.
12) The open source Ubanutu comes with a calendar module if you allow Ubanutu to become a server.
13) Wireless video device could only show motion video on ¼ of the screen. Promised that they would have a product in the fall
14) Video over IP – 3 or 4 vendors doing that.

And yes I should have links but the swag is packed for an early flight and my wife would kill me if I pulled it all out.

Resolutions to take home:

1) I think that teacher blogging may be a way to collectively due staff development around curriculum topics. I think that there are ways to have kids do this as well with private blogs or members only blogs and wikis.

http://www.supportblogging.com/ - Educational Blogging vs Social Networking Blogs

2) I will do a wiki project this year, teachers first, then kids. I have a couple of plane rides and long layovers to mull it over.

OK, I am done. Tomorrow I unplug and go off the grid while going up into the mountains and canyon lands of eastern OR. I hear that you can buy cold beer in San Diego, time to go find out if that is true.

Thanks for reading!
Technorati tags: necc06, necc, NECC

NECC06 Day 2: How We Created Our Education Podcast Series

How We Created Our Education and Technology Podcast Series

Some people have said some nice things about this session. I will not. Richard Smith in his halting hesitant style turned one of the most exciting things I have done in education into a flat boring lecture that made me mine for nuggets of info.

http://inst.cl.uh.edu/podcasts/index.asp

Smith_Podcast Smith_and_Crawford.pdf 259 KB

How We Created Our Education and Technology Podcast Series
School of Ed Podcast
U of Houston(?)
Radio program distributed over the Internet
Listen from Computer or move it to MP3 player for later listening
Time shift is key
Podcasts to cover sports
Education and Technology today
Discussion between hosts
Interview Guest
A guest serves as third host
Vodcasts (video podcast) requires more time because of editing
Frye’s electronics – cheap electronics

The nuggets worth keeping:

Education Podcast Network – David Warlick
http://epnweb.org/

http://royaltyfreemusic.com/ – free sound effects and no royalty music but you have to buy it.

So why no mention of the Podsafe Music Network that I use extensively?
http://music.podshow.com/

The Garargeband freaks were apalled at this Windows centric podcast session, but because of Smith's style they never saw the point that it is just as easy to pray to the gods of podcasting in either church.

Technorati tags: necc06, necc, NECC

NECC06 - Day 2: Wikis in K12

More notes from on the fly from yesterday - Dan did a great job. All his stuff is linked at the web site.

Wikis in K12

Dan McDowell
danmcdowell@cox.net
West Hills High School, Grossmont Union HSD

NECC - San Diego July 6, 2006

http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/necc2006

What – easily editable web site
Everyone can edit it – if it is open, or at least by members
You can see the history of edits, who made the

***Part of Web 2.0
Blogs, podcasting, read/write web pages wiki
Facilitate collaboration

Wikipedia

Why students?
They already do it – they are already blogging on mySpace, Livejournal, Deadspace
All informal – bad grammar,

We have to harness what they are doing for good.
Kids are Digital natives
They are doing this stuff but not in ways that will help them in the working world

Wiki Engines –
Type 1 - Free/Hosted – make an account, and off you go. However you do not host the site.

Type 2 – Self Installed – Still Free but Mediawiki, Tikiwiki
$80/year to pay for your owm server space – you control.
Mediawiki – source of Wikipedia
Tikiwiki is a better choice for stuff – he started w/ Tikiwiki, tried Mediawiki, and went back

Logistics
Can the world see it? Open vs Closed
Need to regulate and keep students in check – you can give individual passwords.
Set up of logistics
If it is not password protected you can have it spammed or vandalized
District Network policies can come into play.

Wiki editing is simple – JOB AID pages

Wiki for staff development
Formal decision point

Bernie Dodge SDSU – Webquest Designs - template for making webquests
That has lead to: the same for Wikis:
Wiki Design Patterns Matrix
Micropedia
FAQ
Consensus Document
Branching Story – a story that
Tree Sim – teacher starts and students go on (Holocust project)
Ant Farms – decision trees for whole class
Exgesis – dissection of dense texts

Projects he has done w/ his kids
1) WWI Battles Wiki
2) AP World History Review - Micropedia format
a. Assigned groups to research questions wrote them up
b. Then had to go back VALIDATE two other groups.
c. A collection of essential questions and answers
3) Holocaust Wiki – Tree Sim /Ant Farm pattern
a. Assign a country
b. Create a family
c. Project include 12 major decision points for family (two choices)
d. Need to have a intersection point
e. Instance of resistance or rescue
f. And the decision point

In his classes HE pre-searches. He does not have time to have them Google, he sets up the sites

Create a Progression of events – Storyboard, a process chart. A map of this process.

WEBQUEST.ORG
QUESTGARDEN
All his stuff is on the web

Technorati tags: necc06, necc, NECC

Technorati Tags - Read All About NECC06 from The Bloggers of NECC06

If you are a techno friend from CT, dropping in to read this in real time (or close to it), please click on the Technorati tags at the end of this note (necc06 works best for me). Check out the many, many people who are blogging their experience at NECC. Thanks to a tip from David Warlick all bloggers who are including teh same common Technorati tags are being aggregated there. It is a fascinating mutli-point of view of the conference. Don't read me - read everybody!

Technorati tags: necc06, necc, NECC

NECC Day 2 Negroponte

NECC Day 2 Negroponte

Extemporanious notes on the fly while listening in the audiance. You are about th ebecome the victim of no editing, poor typing skills and low lighting. just the bullet points as the prsentation continued.

Steve's General take - He filled in some of the pieces of the vision. Very well done.

Great Open Great Music
Introduction President of ISTE
12K attending
6K in this room
Great tech – Captioned simulcast for hearing impaired
Goal – to improve teaching and learning around the globe
Still a digital divide – good policies can overcome that – ISTE has this as a goal.
The I in ISTE is a commitment to International
Already sweeping Asia Africa
Full and Sustained funding is key
Good teachers, good admin critical
450 dropouts – they were bored, but they live and play in a world that is digital. Give these kids laptops and Internet access and they will stay
Lead the process of next level of NETS
Design & build virtual schools w/ 1 to 1 computing
Cadre of experts to be technology turn around teams

NETS is used in 49 states
WVA top state in tech in schools
E2T2 – in danger make it a priority
To meet NCLB you need standard data and accountability
Leaning and Leading with Technology – ISTE journal


Negroponte
MIT media lab
Wired, Being Digital
One Laptop per Child

Pappert – programming teaches you and makes you think, about thinking
Debugging makes you examine think deeply about what went wrong
30 years later – in third world
Go to remote village, find a school, find that they have cobbled together a set of old computers, they are teaching word and excel. Why? Completely irrelevant
Technology is not about teaching, it is about learning.
Gates against it
Intel against it
You must be doing something right
Education should build a passion for learning
Teaching
50% of world kids live in poverty
2.5 hours of school
You cannot
You need to leverage kids peer to peer
25 years ago kids in Senegal = Kids in Lexington MA
Costa Rice is the poster child of success
India – work on connecting kids connecting two sides of Kashmir
Proved that telecommunications is not the issue.
The problem is the laptop – telecommunications will happen
Cambodia example – nothing except laptops no electricity, laptop is the
Maine – provide laptops 6th & 7th grade
Teaching is different students engaged
Bombarded by questions from kids at night
If the block is the laptop can you make it so low cost that every child in the world will have one
Key is scale
Scale will change corporate strategies
Scale @ 100 million units makes the companies sit up and take notice

Laptops
50% of costs are Sales & marketing, profit
Display = 25%
Windows = 25%
Displays cost $10 per diagonal inch has to go about $1
Bloated software and bloated features
If we skinny it down, make it fast and cheap
500 mhz AMD x86 processor
128 DRAM
512 Flash Mem
Less than 2 watts – means that human power can do it 10 wats adult upper
3 USB
Stereo Sound 2 audio out
WiFi Mesh Network peer to peer the Mesh is how you get the kids to Internet as long as you are within 600 meters of another peer. You
Ruggged
Dual mode display sunlight B&W at
Motherboard is here
A working laptop came in from Egypt but it is in customs – hope it will get out
It has to be opensource
Skinny Linux
Instant On
** Kids do 95% of the maintenance
In Cambodia one failure in three years
They are cherished
They will be tested and crashed
Color code machines refer to them there are 12 of them
Crank is gone from laptop – it is on the AC adapter – too much stress on laptop
All models fold into an ebook format
Rabbit ears allow the mesh network to work
Red is the current – display is

$100 server w/ 300 gig for schools
Keyboards are rubber but complicated
Launch dance between the co
October – sign
December – production
Launching outside US – for sure being global is critical – peer to peer
Brazil
Nigeria
Thailand
Argentina
Why not USA the $300 more for a laptop

Nigeria will be the big test bed because conditions are harsh
The price will float $138 in 2007 components like nickel & cobalt
Promise is to keep features simple
Target is $50 in 2010
Gray market – you don’t see Post Office trucks stolen and sold – no market if you see it then it better be kids or teachers
Economics – there are techniques – peer
Side effects – linux will be on desktop
47 million laptops were sold last year doing 100 million per year will change things
No caps lock key – why?

Working systems are here

http://wiki.laptop.org more info

iste@laptop.org for a developer board 400 units

Technorati tags: necc06, necc, NECC

Open Source Links

I know some folks at home are looking in at this blog, and I wanted to get some links down about Open Source before the handout ends up a cumpled ball in the bottom of my bookbag:

http://www.K12OpenSource.com - Open Source Info
http://www.SteveHargadon.com -Blog on Open Source (thin client source)
http://www.K12OS.org - K12 Open Source News for Schools
http://www.k12ltsp.org - K12 Linux Terminal Server Project
http://www.k12ltsp.com - Map of Linux thin client installations

If you are at NECC the Open Source Lab is where to stop to see what they are running on old machines. They are in the Playground area today.

[edit - after poking around a bit this AM over coffee I found a good pro/con discussion from Tim Wilson - The Savy Technologist podcast -http://technosavvy.org/?p=368

Playground area yesterday had some stuff around PE including info on Dance Dance stations which (IMHO) is an great way to get students active and aerobic. It is a part game, part video game, part music, and all aerobic. Imagine it being set up in a lunchroom/gym during recess?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution


necc06, necc, NECC

Alpha Smart - Neo

Almost forgot. The NEO is the replacement for the Alphasmart 3000. It is better, and sells at the same price. The mobile lab mgmnt feture is awesome. Lets you send, configure and manipulate files on all 30 Neos from a laptop through a USB hub.

Also you can upgrade your Alpha 3000 software/firmware for $100/30 units to get the 300 todo much of what the Neo does.


Technorati tags: necc06 / necc

Intellectual Fireworks NECC06 - Day 1

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Wow. NECC 06. Wow.

It was like a wave crashing on me. I did not like all of it. Some of it made me damn mad. I pushed for some answers on things that I am concerned about, and got nowhere. Vendor space was overwhelming. I think that there is so much here I am going to just do a bullet list of things that come to mind. It was that WOW.

• Thornberg and OPEN source software. Hokey presentation by one of the big names. Too much evangelism here an with the whole open source crew . They think their time is now, and as they have the stars in their eyes this is their moment to shine.
o Points of interest:
o NH is moving to Open Office (WIN) to avoid $68 per year license fee.
o Inkspace =Illustrator
o Blender is OPEN 3d movie maker (render is slow)
o NVU makes movies
o Tux paint= Kidpix
o KeygenUS (I think it generates CD keys on the fly if you want to rip off software) Thornberg said it explicitly 2X.
o School Wikis - http://www.schoolwiki.org/wiki.cgi

• Anderson and Podcasting
o Larry Wilson, Lucy Gray, Tim Wilson (The Savy Technologist), Ted Lai. David Warlick
o Lots of Applespeak as they are all Apple Distinguished Educators.
o They collaborated on line, never got together before the event and presentation showed it. Very jumpy, info bouncing back and forth.
o If wikis and podcasts and blogging are Web 2.0 as they said, and this is the style of the “collaborative” information, isn’t it all buzz? Where is the great mind that can add insight, perspective and organization to provide a clear picture? Wading through lots of ideas to find the nugget or the outline or prophet baseline that is the seminal work of a generation will be hard. I wonder how Jefferson or Adams would survive in a blogging environment?
o They set up a wiki to track notes real time. Neat idea.
o Portable digital recorders
 Olympus W2S200S – USB connector, 55 hrs of CD audio
 http://podcastrigs.com – equipment for podcasting.
o Garage band has the ability of “enhanced” podcasts with slides dropped in.
o They did a great disservice by not showing non-Apple pespectives. NECC and/or should have made it clear in the program notes that it was going to be that way.
o Short shift on explicit stuff you find in iTunes.(just be careful – huh?)
o No real classroom examples.

• SmartBoards & BlackBoard – worthless, not as advertised.
• Ubanutu – Linux fro Education
o Ubanutu can be done live
o Indiana going open source
o Open source “lab” was a thin client linux set up runnin P3 laptops sans hard drives and a 3year old server as the file server – THAT has potential for old machines.
o What is Moodle?
 http://cdc.humboldt.edu/lms/whatis.html
 Moodle is a learning management system that lets you provide documents, graded assignments, quizzes, discussion forums, etc. to your students with an easy to learn and use interface. Moodle is developed by a worldwide effort of over 75,000 students, faculty, and staff at over 6500 institutions around the world, coordinated by the main site at Moodle.org.
o Folks who use it are passionate.
o Windows/Linus Security is NOT a problem if you are all Linux (whoop dee do – sell that to my Supt.)
o The time is now for open source
o These are the geekiest people I have ever seen.

• Vendor Space – holy moley! ¼ of a mile of vendors. The heck with sessions, the action is here.

Negroponte tomorrow AM.

Wow.

Later - Steve

Technorati Tags: education, necc, necc06, necc2006

NECC06 - Fireworks!

The reception this evening was great. Lots of food. Tons of people. It ran smoothly. That is a compliment to the folks who are running this show. They have planned well and showed tonight that they cane service the crowd they expected. What to go NECC and San Diego Convention Center.

I had two techno moments. I read a blog that said that Palm was not going to be here. The wonder was if palm was going to abandon ed computing. That would be a shame because some excellent people did a lot of work using their products. The idea is sound, the concept of 1 to 1 computing devices and just in time learning will change education. Was the Palm the wrong vehicle? Will the $100 laptop be the right vehicle? I have been doing this too long and understand how the next new thing is always yesterday's news but my work and experience with my Palm stuff suggests that making technology ubiquitous and universal does change the way people integrate it into their lives. Yah hear me out there choir? Nod your keyboards and type amen!

OK the second techno moment. I was drawn to a poster session about an adventure ecology piece of software. It was from England. Typical adventure where you interact with characters to make the world better. Now the character titles were General Fear, Professor Ignorance and Chairman Greed. Huh? Talk about stereotyping! The gal was all over it and had her sales rap down. I wanted to ask her - what if you were a CEO and a good corporate citizen, working to make your company the best you could be in terms of your efforts to create zero environmental impact or even find ways to make things better? Are they all Chairman Greed? General Fear? She is in for one rough ride in this military town tomorrow I think.

The city continues to amaze. We could view 4 displays of fireworks going on on the bay and a fifth somewhat. Again a cool evening with the hard clothing choice if a long sleeve shirt or a short sleeve shirt.

necc06, necc, NECC

NECC06 San Diego Zoo

Lessons for today:

1) Never go to the San Diego Zoo with a Biology teacher (have to see all the animals -5 minutes per animal, 10 if they have a cute baby).

2) Gas in San Diego is 20 cents higher per gallon than at home.

3) In the Learning Annex free catalog of adult and community learning you can take a courses on getting on game shows, getting on Idol type shows, spend and evening w/ Ted Allen the food and wine expert from Queer Eye, and I kid you not - How to Give Oral Sex to a Man. Talk about your homework!

Really, Zoo was great. Public transportation works here and it was fun using it. (pay $5 for a day pass, Orange line to City College, over one block, to the bus stop, take any of the 7 buses get off at Zoo Place. Little tricky seeing the stop to get off for the trolley transfer but ask the driver). While it was sunny and hot, the Zoo was prety shaded and if you were careful you could avoid the heat and sun. It is clearly a world class zoo. I have a variety of philosophical musings about the conceptual under pinnings but that is for another day. Go see the Zoo.

Off to the NECC reception and fireworks, or maybe dinner in Gaslamp.

necc06
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Good Morning San Diego!

This AM, my dear wife took me on a running tour of the waterfront. When I get a chance I will post a little more about the public spaces and recreational life style here, but suffice to say, everybody runs. So, we ran up along the parks and promenades for a while and ran back to the convention center through more parks and promenades.

Post run we stopped to get our badges and swag. The much longed for conference matrix showed up in the swag bag. And we are good to go. Lots of people at the Convention Center this AM as there is bus transport to Coronado which has a big 4th celebration and is a funky place to visit (we were there yesterday). I am not sure if it was the trip, but I was surprised to see so many people picking up badges so early in the AM. The desks opened at 7AM and we were in line (sweaty, but in line) about 7:20.

I was disappointed by the conference listing about the $100 laptop. It says that "weighted" ,models of the case will be available and people can play with the prototype motherboards. This is what they are offering to beta testers and when I looked at that site It seemed like you really needed to know the ins and outs of motherboard hardware to make a go of it. Not NECC's fault but I was hoping for more. Off to the Zoo! NECC action picks up tonight so time to squeeze in another round of sight seeing.

Independence Day

Another tourist day in San Diego. We explored the huge conference center area and surrounding parks and waterfront in a morning jog/walk. The bulk of the day was spent heading to Coronado by ferry renting bikes and riding the bike path to the Silver Sands State Park where we enjoyed the beach (hey, it is Southern California!). We came back with a side trip to Balboa Park, more to scout out the area for a trip today. It will be the Zoo and the Museums. Explored a great cactus garden - not a plant that I get to see often and now know ten times more about the Australian Diggerydoo than I did yesterday (you can make a "practice" one with a 4 foot piece of PVC pipe from Home Depot!)

NECC Conference officially opens today. We get to pick up our conference packets, and there is a reception this evening on the terrace of the convention center, where we will be able view the multiple fireworks happening on the bay. I am finding the web site that is generally excellent to be a bit of a pain to see the grand overview. You can explore by theme and time but I need to see a daily grid to see where the overlaps and conflicts lie. There is an interactive conference planner and some of the conference bloggers are using a web based spreadsheet (Google beta I think) to create their own grid but I am not seeing exactly what I. I think what I need is available in the online package but I am not finding it or using the conference planner the right way.

Lots of thing happening around open source solutions for K12 so that may be an area of emphasis for me. Need the complete grid!!!!!

San Diego

San Diego is all that it was touted to be. This is the "tourist" part of this blog, and while NECC happens every year at this time, it was the combination of San Diego and NECC that propelled me into going. So, a little diversion from techno talk and more about Steve's vacation. However on the techno side I am sitting in a hotel room and have wireless Internet access. It was interesting hooking up. The typical "search for available networks" brought me to a home page for the hotel. I had to click an accept button that said I would abide by their terms and conditions, and them I was dropped onto the hotel's home page. An interesting concept for those who contemplate some sort of public Internet access from their schools. If you connect you have to agree to these terms. One more note is that I got word that our districts podcasts are getting mentioned on Podcasts for Teachers (http://www.podcastforteachers.org/feed.xml) in their next episode.

OK, travelogue - Climate is what it reported to be. The proximity to the water keeps it very comfortable. Just a few miles inland where ocean air cannot reach, temps soared yesterday to close to 100. It was hot in the sun here but not unbearable. We are staying downtown across the street from the convention center, and next door to Petco Park (where the Padres play) and the Gaslamp district of clubs and restaurants and shops. From this point there are great links to public transportation (trolleys & buses) walking and jogging paths along the water, and special bike paths.

Convention "officially" starts tomorrow so we are playing. We rented bikes and did a 20 mile ride (we are big into road biking back home) to Cabrillo Point overlooking the bay and surrounding area. Went to the Padres game on Sunday afternoon. Petco Park was the best major league stadium I have been to (well apart from Shea Stadium - but the difference is that all other ballparks are like great cathedrals where you get a feel of what heaven might be like, Shea is heaven). Petco is beautiful in design incorporating flowers and waterscapes and outdoor plazas for eating. It holds 40K but feels very intimate. Its footprint does a good job of fitting into the downtown area. Most impressive is that it is family friendly. Left field is kind of "open". The seating there is low and behind the area is a rise to a grassy knoll where families can spread out blankets and watch the game. The knoll is actually part of the outfield of a wiffle ball stadium where kids can play during the game. Below the actual seating in left, the "wall" is Plexiglas and between the seats and the wall is a sandbox. So now picture this a parent with young ones to bring to the park. You can sit and watch the game and your kids can be several rows below playing w/sand toys. Beyond your kids is the game. When they get bored you can take a walk over to the wiffleball field or head up to the grassy knoll for a nap. There is a broad flat concourse for walking a stroller. Take public transport to the game, have my family be comfortable while I watch - they've got my money!