MassCUE General Business Meeting

Apponequit Conference April 7, 1990

Board members present: Martin Huntley, Chuck Drayton, Alan November, Algot Runeman, Peg Bondorew, Laurene Belisle, Linda Colvin, John Marion

• Martin Huntley called the meeting to order at 4:16 PM and asked that the first order of business be the analysis of the conference.
• Alan November commented that the Keynote speaker should have a breakout session available following the speech to allow those with questions an opportunity to discuss the speech.
• Alan Kay is penciled in as the fall keynote. He is the Apple person who is well known for the portable computer concept "Dynabook" and should be a good draw for the conference.
• Chuck Drayton asked if we are continuing to address the issue of Apple vs. IBM "affiliation". We may be perceived by many as Apple oriented.
• Ann King (IBM) feels we are making a real effort to balance our number of presentations and our vendor invitations.
• Chris Margulies suggests that we always clearly identify the machine appropriate to a presentation.
• Peg Bondorew reminded us that we solicit our presenters and workshops and up to now, we have not kept a person from presenting just because we had more presentations with one machine than another.
• Martin also pointed out that we rarely turn away presenters.
• Joanne Robinson reminded us that we must clarify in publications (Calendar and onCUE) and at SIG meetings that the fall conference will be the ONLY conference for the year.
• A BCS [Boston Computer Society] notice would be valuable, too. We need to get the message across to all interested members and associates.
• Martin is concerned that we build up SIG and other methods to cover the state as we go to one central conference to replace visits to different school conference sites around the state.
• Birds of a feather sessions suggested as an afternoon offering for the fall.
• Tom Vaughn noted that this conference had excellent timing and that the overlap of sessions was not a problem.
• Brainstorm-- no student helpers are built in at Worcester hotel site. A more solid link must be forged with local Worcester school people so we can get local help.
• Alan wants to invite non-technologists to give talks to go beyond purely technological issues. Management, early adopters and self starters are our traditional MassCUE audience. Don't discard them, but broaden base of community - PTO, superintendents, department chairs, principals, etc.
• Bill Johnson concerned with staff development offerings to attract non-technologists. We are trying to show the light of technology - we need the tools to deliver to school staffs. Attract classroom teachers.
• Suggest in-service credit. Promote to districts - Kids and Computers style presentations to show off fresh approaches that work (do at conference).
• Bill Johnson feels that regular classroom teachers probably not going to come - Vendors are giving more workshops than before. There is increased in-system staff development. Even SIG attendance has been lower recently.
• Algot Runeman wondered if we need to reach out to other organizations like Math and Social Studies organizations by offering to present MassCUE talks at their conferences.
• Bill Johnson thinks we need to clarify our focus on our audience. Who do we want to serve? We need to continue to draw classroom teachers to our conferences and membership.
• Chuck Drayton suggests "kids in action" sessions
• Joanne Robinson suggests poster strands as physical presentations of student work. We should invite teachers who have gone to Statehouse.
• Chris Margulies reminds us of problems stemming from current fiscal constraints.
• Peg Bondorew - We need to attract math and science people.
• Laurene Belisle has deadlines. All of this must be in hand because the program needs to go out July 30.
• Martin Huntley points out that we should realize that all of these good suggestions may not be implemented with this coming conference.
• Bill Johnson - What about whole language approach in the way Marie Crispen has done it. There is a large opportunity to attract language arts people who are eager to know about whole language techniques. We need to reach specific targets through advertising and notices to specific groups. Do target selling. Take care in ad design because MassCUE name may not have any draw in groups that are not computer using educators.
• meeting adjourned at 5:00 PM