About 4 months ago, I received an e-mail from Jill Thompson, the technology and curriculum expert from our district, if I was interested in attending the ISTE 2014 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Of course, it took me about two seconds to reply instantly with an emphatic YES! I had always heard about ISTE, but never had a chance to experience all the greatness that encompasses the event.
In planning for the trip, Lisa Pagano (one of my best friends and biggest inspirations) and I had dinner one night to design and schedule our sessions. We had the ISTE website up on an iPad, the app opened on our phones, and Lisa's new "Mac Book Air" open with a Google Sheet to design the schedule. After about an hour of research and discussion, we both decided that it would be best to just "wing it" and hit the sessions and events that appealed to us while we were in Atlanta.
So on Saturday, Lisa, Megan Mehta (a fabulous 3rd grade teacher in our district), and myself joined together for the four hour car drive from Charlotte to Atlanta. We had loads of laughs, terrific inside jokes, and some great educational discussions about what we are planning to do for the upcoming school year. The ride went by so quickly because I was around some incredible people.
Once in Atlanta, we checked into our hotel, found the shuttle stop, and headed toward the Georgia World Congress Center for our first ISTE experience! Registration was a breeze (and despite me stopping every five seconds and trying to get secret codes for the Networking Game) made our way to line up for the Ignite Session. This was a quick lesson I learned at ISTE - the lines are LONG and in order to get into sessions you want to see, you must line up early! We were there about 45 minutes early and there were probably about 300 people ahead of us in the line. Regardless, we met some amazing people while standing in line, and received ideas and inspiration from those around us.
Once we were at the Ignite session we discovered that it is a quick and rapid paced session with about 13 presenters, each of whom have about 5 minutes and 20 slides to present their ideas to the audience. Who wouldn't love this? My biggest takeaway was from Nicholas Provenzano (aka the Nerdy Teacher) who hooked us with the Phineas and Ferb theme song. Then he connected the life that Phineas and Ferb live - loving summer because they can utilize their creative thinking; hating school because it limits such thinking - to how we can better improve our classroom instruction. This, of course, led to the idea of having a Genius Hour led classroom where student inquiry, creativity, and love of learning is the center piece and not mindless and dull tasks that kids despise.
After the ignite session, I had the terrific fortune of eying Elle (Elle Deyamport) and finally meeting the third person I ever followed on Twitter (only behind Ron Clark and Ian Byrd). It was #ISTEBesties at first sight as she, Lisa, and myself hit it off instantly and became great friends. We had some terrific times on this first day and I was honored to have finally met her.
After a late lunch at the adjoining Taco Mac (and garnering some more network codes), we headed back over to the GWCC to see the first keynote of the night, Ashley Judd. We were all a little perplexed at her selection to give a keynote at ISTE, but nonetheless, we meandered our way to watch her. Little did we know that about 10,000 of our closest friends had the same idea. I usually don't mind crowds, but this was intense and scary. We decided to hang back and watch the keynote at the ISTE Blogger Cafe. Ashely's story was personal and connected to the educators in the room, but I do question the choice of her as a keynote at this particular conference.
After the keynote, we decided to head back to the hotel room to rest and relax for the upcoming days.
In planning for the trip, Lisa Pagano (one of my best friends and biggest inspirations) and I had dinner one night to design and schedule our sessions. We had the ISTE website up on an iPad, the app opened on our phones, and Lisa's new "Mac Book Air" open with a Google Sheet to design the schedule. After about an hour of research and discussion, we both decided that it would be best to just "wing it" and hit the sessions and events that appealed to us while we were in Atlanta.
So on Saturday, Lisa, Megan Mehta (a fabulous 3rd grade teacher in our district), and myself joined together for the four hour car drive from Charlotte to Atlanta. We had loads of laughs, terrific inside jokes, and some great educational discussions about what we are planning to do for the upcoming school year. The ride went by so quickly because I was around some incredible people.
Once in Atlanta, we checked into our hotel, found the shuttle stop, and headed toward the Georgia World Congress Center for our first ISTE experience! Registration was a breeze (and despite me stopping every five seconds and trying to get secret codes for the Networking Game) made our way to line up for the Ignite Session. This was a quick lesson I learned at ISTE - the lines are LONG and in order to get into sessions you want to see, you must line up early! We were there about 45 minutes early and there were probably about 300 people ahead of us in the line. Regardless, we met some amazing people while standing in line, and received ideas and inspiration from those around us.
Once we were at the Ignite session we discovered that it is a quick and rapid paced session with about 13 presenters, each of whom have about 5 minutes and 20 slides to present their ideas to the audience. Who wouldn't love this? My biggest takeaway was from Nicholas Provenzano (aka the Nerdy Teacher) who hooked us with the Phineas and Ferb theme song. Then he connected the life that Phineas and Ferb live - loving summer because they can utilize their creative thinking; hating school because it limits such thinking - to how we can better improve our classroom instruction. This, of course, led to the idea of having a Genius Hour led classroom where student inquiry, creativity, and love of learning is the center piece and not mindless and dull tasks that kids despise.
After the ignite session, I had the terrific fortune of eying Elle (Elle Deyamport) and finally meeting the third person I ever followed on Twitter (only behind Ron Clark and Ian Byrd). It was #ISTEBesties at first sight as she, Lisa, and myself hit it off instantly and became great friends. We had some terrific times on this first day and I was honored to have finally met her.
After a late lunch at the adjoining Taco Mac (and garnering some more network codes), we headed back over to the GWCC to see the first keynote of the night, Ashley Judd. We were all a little perplexed at her selection to give a keynote at ISTE, but nonetheless, we meandered our way to watch her. Little did we know that about 10,000 of our closest friends had the same idea. I usually don't mind crowds, but this was intense and scary. We decided to hang back and watch the keynote at the ISTE Blogger Cafe. Ashely's story was personal and connected to the educators in the room, but I do question the choice of her as a keynote at this particular conference.
After the keynote, we decided to head back to the hotel room to rest and relax for the upcoming days.