March 1 blog re NAIS Task Force in Boston
Steve Bergen

2AM
alarm 1 failed
oh my ... how could that be
it was now 2:10
alarm 2 woke me up ... thank goodness for redundancy
I quickly shut off alarm 3 and alarm 4 so that Lynne would not wake up
oh my ... gotta rush
I had told myself I needed to be out the door by 2:30AM to catch the 3:15AM train to Boston
Gene Sullivan had warned me to leave earlier than 2:30AM
oh my
gotta shower, get dressed, make my morning omelet, pack the black bag and get out the door in 20 minutes
wow ... this is pressure

3AM
success ... now at Penn Station
left the apartment at 2:33 and had an OCD attack at the elevator that I had left the electric charger for my cell phone inside ... lost a minute by going back inside to check ... I met Jesus the doorman at 2:35 ... he had promised me the night before he could get a cab in 3 minutes ... money in the bank, Eric the doorman had said about grabbing a NYC cab in the middle of the night

Jesus was right ... easy cab, black bag and two cups of coffee in my hand ... oh no ... in being nice, Jesus slammed the door on me knocking over 1 of the cups of coffee ... oh no ... did it spill on my pants .. that would be a setback ... no redundancy in terms of pants ..

whew .. the spill was on the cab floor ..NP for no problem
okay ... time to learn a lesson ... never bring hot coffee into a NYC cab

anyway, I made it to Penn Station at 2:52 and enjoyed my wonderful cold omelet and somewhat warm coffee sitting on the floor of Penn Station with “the guys” ... amazing how many people hang out in Penn Station at 3am ... I could have brought my harmonica and done a Y2K song

4AM
now in Stamford CT
TGFB .... thank goodness for bluetooth .. so far, I have not lost a connection even once ... what a difference in being on the train in 2006 .. this is SO MUCH better than 2002-2003 ... comfortable seats, got my water and my pistachio nuts ... got Bruce Springsteen Badlands on auto repeat and on line constantly ... I think I could commute daily with this setup ... incredibly pleasant!

5AM
stuck in New Haven
and I mean STUCK
the train has not moved for 33 minutes
amazing
is this 2006 or 1006?
no wonder the trip is 4.5 hours
in Europe, you can get from London to Belgium in under 3 hours going under the English Channel and here it takes 4.5 hours to go 200 miles from NYC to Boston
not only that, but each seat contains just ONE electrical plug
I have been constantly alternating from charging the laptop to charging the cell phone
I think I will buy an extension cord in Boston
I never thought of bringing one!

note to Tech Team at Chapin ...I will be in Boston for the day but will be back on Thursday at Chapin .. Pat Bassett from NAIS has created a national task force on technology (agenda below)
the key person in charge today is Neil Martinez (in case of a crisis) ...Steve

1. What Principles of Good Practice guide Technology use in Independent Schools?
2. What does technology in the curriculum, and as curriculum, look like?
a. What are essential components of 21st century media literacy?
-- Safety and wellness-MySpace, Facebook
-- Accessing and evaluating information resources
-- Technology skills/benchmarks
b. When is technology instruction appropriate? At what age?
c. How does a school's culture impact technology solutions?
d. How do you measure technology's effectiveness in the classroom?
e. Should computer science be an elective or a requirement
3. What opportunities does Technology promote as Accelerator?
a. Can a single independent school stay isolated from other schools and still be able to reach the middle class and other markets?
b. Can the technological flattening of the curricular world help to solve independent schools' tuition pricing problems? (by schools trading/selling courses)
4. What strategies should a school employ to keep up with emerging technologies?

6AM
New London CT
sun is rising ... most people are still sleeping ... I had to go into the bathroom to return a phone call from Gene Sullivan who was sure that I had missed the 3:15 train ...little does he know the power of redundancy ... four alarms ... not a chance that I was going to miss that train

in contrast, I am scared that I will miss the Penn Station stop as I try to keep my eyes open for 24 hours ... the train I am taking back tonight leaves Boston at 9:45 and lands in NYC at 2am ... my fear is that I will be asleep at 1:33 and will wake up at 5 and find myself in Washington DC ... even now I find myself dozing off ... I wonder if I will make it for 24 hours .. oh no, we just stopped in Rhode Island and a ton of new people are coming aboard .... only an hour or two left to do the HW reading we were assigned for the NAIS task force on technology ... the meeting is 10am this morning


7AM
Where am I going?
We just left Providence and are getting closer to 128. I just realized that I don’t know where I am going . I knew I was going to Boston, but where? I just checked and the NAIS convention is in the Hynes Convention Center but it says the 10AM session this morning is in the
Boston Marriott Copley Place ... is that the same place ... I don’t think so ... and then the 6pm reception is in the Prudential Center ... okay, we are not at 128 yet ... time to get on MapQuest and figure this all out .. I think I will get out at Back Bay, not South Station

8AM
I made it ... finally!
Called the hotel and they said to get out at Back Bay and once you are on the street, the Marriot will be obvious ... well I helped a guy from Baltimore find the orange line, but I could not see the Marriot ANYWHERE .. finally I called Trisha back at the hotel and she stayed with me on the phone as I walked to Dartmouth Street over the Pike and into the Copley Plaza ... Trisha said it would be easy once inside and we hung up. Well it wasn’t easy. I met a woman from Tower Hill School in Delaware who was also lost. I stayed with her but then found out that she was going to the Hynes Center and we had walked together 1/4 of a mile past the Marriot. I turned around and finally, finally, finally found it. Simmons Room, Third Floor. The meeting starts in 90 minutes at 10AM ... I am happy to report that I am the first one here. Better early than late, as they say!

9AM It turns out I was the second person to arrive ... Susan from NAIS was the first ... it turns out that she knows Sandy Theunick who is on the NAIS Board ... Susan and her colleague Donna loved hearing the “Sandy, Sandy Theunick” song from 2003 ... then Susan saw the lyrics “Keep the File Small Please” and she made me share that one with her as well

10AM NAIS Technology Task Force meeting started ... 7 people out of 16 chose to call in on speaker phone ... 9 people showed up .... I took on the privilege of writing everyone’s name on the flip chart with those here in red and those on speaker phone in blue ...

11AM chair of the committee is Albert from St. Mary’s Episcopal School ... he works for and with Virginia Pretti who is the Associate Head of School and still going strong in both Moss Hall and the whole school

12 Noon Had lunch with Kevin McAllister from InResonance .. he tells me that DS broke up with her husband after she got tired of 5 years of him not having a job and not trying to get one ... she is now a teacher at one of the friends schools in Philadelphia area

1 PM stopped in at Sephora since I had some time to kill before my next meeting ... salesperson suggested a new LIP product called Fusion but since it had collagen in it, I decided on Shea Butter instead .

2pm
eyes still open
heading to Starbucks for some high quality coffee

3pm
just got an e-mail from Ilana about a candidate who is here for a Chapin job

4pm
found a desk
it has electricity
it is in the lobby
There is a sign that say OLD TROLLEY TOUR this way --->
I now look official with my coffee and laptop at the desk

5pm
A guy walks over and says “hey Sir, can I get a Trolley for this area.”
turns out to be John Neiers from Dalton who is here for the next few days.
I watch his bags while he checks in. Then I interview a guy who is looking for a job at Chapin. Now I am heading with John to TOP OF THE PRU where I was invited for drinks from the President of NAIS.

6pm
John and I went to the Top of the Pru and met a bunch of the tech people from the morning. Beer, sushi, roast beef and Sandy Theunick whom I could not find. How I wish I could drink diet coke but no more. I gave that up a few days ago and pretty soon “no more diet coke” will be a habit. Hopefully, I will stop craving it like tonight.

7pm
Before leaving NAIS, I run into Patrick Bassett, the NAIS President. We are leaving the Top of the Pru and run into Tim Fish who has finally arrived. The Boston night lights look great including Fenway Park and the CITGO sign.

8pm
Walking to the train station, I come upon a guy from the Bronx all by himself ... none other than Tom Palermo. He offers to buy me a coffee at Starbucks but I was nervous that I could not find the train station. Then about 100 yards later, I do a literal and figurative 180 and look for him and call him on the phone but he does not answer. Now I am stuck in the cold for an hour waiting for the train. How dumb can I be!

9pm
I am sitting on the cold concrete waiting for the last leg of the trip. One of my buddies on the street tells me that my shoe lace is not fully tied. It is freezing cold. I am scared that I will miss the train. Boston is SO MUCH colder than NY.
10pm
Get e-mail from Clint at piping.com that our server is having trouble

11pm
Clint and I speak on the phone as I give him the DNS numbers for towerstream

midnight
It turns out the DNS numbers were wrong but Clint patched our system anyway by pointing the DNS to his servers at piping

1AM
Finally, the Amtrak train is heading into NYC from CT ... eyes still open.

2AM
Penn Station almost 24 hours later. No sleep for 24 hours. Jack Bauer would be proud of me. Get to my apartment just in time to hear the alarm clock go off, waking up Lynne at 2:10AM just as I turned the key to enter. It turns out that I had never deactivated the alarm so it went off YET AGAIN 24 hours later.