SLATE NG - new year, new look, new URL

In 2012, SLATE will be celebrating 10 years as a professional development, collborative, and innovative user group. Its come a long way since that first meeting of eight institutions back in May of 2002. What started as a simple roundtable discussion has turned into a true community of practice of almost 80 participating institutions from around the world and over 300 individuals on the mailing list.

The SLATE mission has always been and will continue to be: To support learning and technology in education through communication, collaboration, and innovation while developing a community of practice. By embracing the teaching, learning, and technology challenges of K-12, higher-ed, and the corporate sector, SLATE strives to bring together these groups to identify the common questions and challenges and searches for common solutions regardless of the platform or audience. But where do we go from here... What is our SLATE NG...

So with the start of the new year, I would like to announce a couple of things:

• I invite you to visit the new SLATE website at: www.slategroup.org. I hope you will find it to be familiar, but with a sleeker look and feel. Please bookmark it for future reference. Comments and suggestions about the site are welcome.
• With the number of registrations at the annul SLATE Conference increasing each year, we have come to a point that we have now outgrown our current venue. So to accommodate the increased number of participants, and also be able to offer things like hands-on and pre-conference workshops that have been asked for in the past, the venue for the 2012 conference will be the NIU Naperville Campus located in Naperville, IL. This will allow for many new options and additional services at the conference. Additional information can be found on the website at www.slategroup.org/conference
• The schedule for the monthly meetings is now posted. A lot of new places to visit this year. We are still looking for topics for some of the meetings, so if you have any suggestions please pass them along to me.

I would also like to remind you that now is a good time to review your institution profile and update any information that may have changed over the year. Just click on the apply or update link under the Members Tab and submit when completed. We have condensed some of the information to make it easier. The profile now limits the number of contacts to two but anyone else from your institution that wants to be can be added to the mailing list. Just have them contact me.

I am very excited about the possibilities that 2012 will offer and look forward to working with each of you as we take this next step in the SLATE evolution.

Ken