Heavy sigh...'K, ya'll. Finally sitting in the Los Angeles airport sipping on a tall iced tea and making some time to hammer out a blogpost I can put S4theB! episode 40 into. Here are the (essential) shownotes. I've been woefully remiss in posting the show. It was simply too busy, too fun, and too social at NECC 2006. The time I spent not in sessions, on the exhibitor floor, in meetings, or out networking with my growing group of educator pals was spent walking to one place or the other or completely knocked out in my hotel room. I didn't even get to the beach, ya'll, I was workin' so hard for you! Then, as you'll read below, I tagged on a couple days in L.A. with my godson. The show today is an amalgam of these things, and I hope you'll agree with me that even if it's hard to hear sometimes it's worth the effort. It is hard to hear sometimes when you're there in person, too, at least in the the poster sessions ("A Noob in Second Life") or at the exhibitor hall (David Macquart of Global Nomads Group) at the Polycom Booth. The audio in the spotlight sessions ("Telling the New Story: Promoting Visions for 21st Century Classrooms") is much better, and I have to commend the ISTE tech folks for the outstanding technical quality of every presentation I witnessed this year. If you check the attendance report at NECC, you'll see that over 12,000 teachers, technologists, and administrators registered and attended and that doesn't even count the vast numbers of people in town for exhibiting their wares to these folks. If you want a notion of how many that might be, take a gander at the interactive exhibition floor plan! Float your mouse over that and the exhibitor names pop up. Wow. To make the ride easier this show, I've added superb new music from Bill deRome, Amy Ayers, and Slackstring--maintaining a consistent theme of mellow intelligence this show. Please check out their individual links here and also visit the Podsafe Music Network, source for these great singers' great songs, to see you you can explore the rich but underdistributed store of fabulous independent music the world has to offer (but the "powers-that-be" in the music biz often fail to celebrate). There's also a Tech Tip Tidbit, as you've come to expect :). Thanks to Joan Roehre, Jan Zanetis, Elaine Shuck, and especially to all my peeps at the IVC (Interactive Videoconferencing) support desk. I don't feature my own work in this podcast, but if you want a notion of how that went (fantastically, what else with such great support?) take a peep at my Desktop IVC blog and at the results for a search for "Merrick" at NECC. And finally, a great big thank you to all the folks who faithfully attended my three presentations and who may have gotten here to S4theB! as a result. Okay, I have to add a personal aside, and only because I'm so proud of my brother. We're related by soul, not by birth, and the hospitality he and his beautiful wife Riad showed me as I visited them after NECC in order to spend some quality time with my godson, Seamus, was (as I told Riad when I was leaving) "positively Southern," ya'll. Said brother is James Morrison, who has a very nice little gig on the immensely popular Fox Network series, "24." I'm a "24" addict, I readily admit, and not only because Jimmy is on the show. But here's the thing: If you are interested in acting, or writing, or movie production, or poetry, check out my favorite male earthling's official website, and especially his "Media Productions" page, for details of his work--his webmaster recently made two of his (and his incredibly talented wife's) independently produced movies available for free download at that page. Wow. I got a personal viewing of Riad's new short, Crossing, which is so moving and well written, acted, and directed that I can't help but expect very big things from it. If you have any money you'd like to donate or invest, contact these folks from James's website. Their new project is amazing, and its details are available upon request. I can't talk about it here or he'd have to kill me. That would be sad. Listen up to S4theB! episode number 40 here! Additional Links: Auburn University's Second Life project poster session description David Warlick's Connect-Learning Global Nomads Group