Tim Childers’ Blog

The flight on the Continental puddle jumper was terrific.  Although small, the plane had a very smooth ride.  I knew it was really small when they started boarding the back of the plane first and began with row 9!

The Hilton of the Americas in Houston is fantastically beautiful.  Our room is spacious and comfortable.  Check in for the conference took all of 2 minutes.

Our party walked about two blocks to Josephine’s Italian restaurant for dinner.  Although the service was slow (the place was packed), the food was excellent.  From appetizer to dessert, I can highly recommend it.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I’ll spend the morning walking the exhibit hall and checking on the Discovery booth.  Sessions begin tomorrow afternoon.

Good night.

Bags packed?  Check.  Batteries charged? Check.  Toothbrush?  Check.  Laptop? Well…not quite.  Still writing this blog.

Nine teachers and administrators from Lake Forest Middle School in Cleveland, TN will board a Continental flight in Chattanooga today and arrive this evening in Houston, TX for the National Middle Schools Association national conference.  We are pumped!

As middle school teachers, it doesn’t get any better than this.  Nearly 10,000 attendees make this quite a show.  Hundreds of workshops covering nearly the entire spectrum of instruction.  I took a peek at the sessions on technology, and the DEN will be proud of some of the things being presented.  Photo Story is there.  Digital Storytelling is represented.  “Lights, Camera, Action” has a session.  Pretty cool stuff.

I found out too late that Discovery is looking for worker bees for their booth.  I plan to help some, but I can’t help as much as I’d like.  However (and get this!), when I mentioned it to my principal he told me that next year he would encourage all our attendees to sign up and work the Discovery booth!  Talk about pumped!  That made my day.

I will be blogging from the conference, as well as updating my friends on twitter (user name tchilders).  It should be an exciting time.  Check back often this week.

Okay, about to check laptop.