Week 3 – Think Out Loud Post – Conference

In my search for a conference to present my AR project at, I came upon the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, which fits right in with my project perfectly! My e-book, “The Adventures of Little Boat,” would fit well into the education, the communications, and the technology, so I decided for fun to just drop a quick note to one of their conference organizers. I wasn’t thinking that I would get a response; I just wanted to put the feelers out there and see if I could get any further information. The surprise came to me within hours, a very positive response to my query! Below is a paste of my email to Judy Donovan and her response to me is below it (golly, I may end up at the conference next year!):

My email:

Hi Judy,

My name is Zoe Marlowe, and I am close to completing my Master's degree in Education, Media Design and Technology (EMDT) from Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. I am looking to be a possible presenter at your 2012 conference, whenever it is that there will be one. I read your web page for the 2011 conference and it looked like it is right in my 'wheelhouse.'

Please allow me to give you a brief background on my area of study. For my Master's Action Research Project, I have written a high-tech, interactive children's e-book called "The Adventures of Little Boat" with 3rd to 6th grade students in mind. My book is a PDF format, is fully illustrated by me, and contains interactive links to my website where I have included video content with animal and bird videos I personally captured (I am a photographer/videographer). The purpose of my book is to reach young children in the way of inspiring them to spend time outdoors and in nature, in their natural environment in this day and age of electronic media and distractions. I am concerned with a fascinating condition, which is getting more and more media attention: Nature Deficit Disorder or NDD. Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods" wrote at length in books and articles about this condition, and is also the person who coined the definition of Nature Deficit Disorder. I feel as though my e-book has a lot to offer classroom teachers of younger children, and I have tested my book out on small test groups of children, and also an entire 5th grade classroom of 29 children, all experiments with resoundingly positive results, providing data I would love to share with teachers looking for technologically sound ways to reach their students. I believe my ideas are innovative, technologically savvy, and also inspirational. I will be creating a proposal to present at your conference as a part of my Master's degree program during this month, and I sincerely hope we can correspond further about this.

Judy’s response:
Hi Zoe - your research sounds very interesting and timely and I
believe the topic would be a good fit for the School Media and
Technology Division of AECT. I suggest you join AECT as a student and
attend the 2011 conference in Jacksonville, Florida this fall. I think
you would have a great time and be able to attend some fascinating
sessions. We will have a couple of sessions on Augmented Reality books
you might enjoy in particular. Thanks for writing.

Judy Donovan


Judy's response was unexpected and very positive. I think I may even try to get to the conference next year. This year is out of the question because I will be overseas for the entire rest of the year after graduation. Anyway, it was a nice email to receive!