MII Takes Final Bow

Like television show “Seinfeld” and Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show,” the Midwest Internet Institute (MII) planning committee has decided to end its run while at the top of its game. At the recommendation of the committee, the NETA Board voted at its October Board meeting to end the yearly summer event.

When MII was started in 1997, the Internet was relatively new to education and offered unlimited, and mostly untapped, potential for impacting our classrooms. Since then, the use of the Internet has become a mainstay for most educators. While there are still new web-based developments, we believe these things can now be addressed through the spring NETA conference with presentations by pioneering Nebraska educators and invited speakers.

Also, in an attempt to keep Web-based education at the educational forefront, the MII planning committee requested that funds left in their conference account be used to support classroom Internet projects. Therefore, the NETA Board also voted to add two teacher grant awards to the Technology Grant Program, $1500 each, that will be awarded to teachers who use the Internet as the focus of their projects.

Our hats are off to the MII planning committee, for their years of hard work in planning and presenting an outstanding yearly conference. The current committee consists of Chuck Friesen, Lincoln Public Schools; Sandy Blankenship, ESU 6; Graci Gillming, ESU 10; Sue Burch, Grand Island Public Schools; Roger Adkins, ESU 16; Wayne Fisher, NE Dept. of Education; Kelly Nicklin, Omaha Public Schools; Linda Dickeson, NETA; and Renee’ Bose, Syracuse Public Schools. Others who have served on this committee in the past are Neal Topp, UNO; Al Steckelberg, UNL; Dave Smith, Lincoln Public Schools; Kristi Peters, ESU 7 (now at Lincoln Public Schools); Tony Deeb, OPS; and Bob Pawloski, UNO.

We also thank those of you who have attended and/or presented summer after summer. Here are just a few of the comments from the evaluations from MII 2005:

The NETA Board looks forward to a continued emphasis on Web-based instruction at their spring conference. Get those session proposals submitted via the NETA web site by December 15!