Wednesday, July 4, 2018

ISTE 2018 Resources and Reflections

I've been back from ISTE for a week now and *almost* had enough time to reflect on the experience.


 It was a very busy few days, but it is still one of my favorites! Chicago was fun. It wasn't my favorite conference set up, but the non-conference food/fun was top notch.


We started with the pre-conference Seesaw Connect event. The opening Ignite Sessions were great and we made some great connections. Cara and I added several ideas from the opening session to our annual plane ride home list of ideas. (More on that later!)


If I present a session, my school will let me attend the conference. Knowing the ISTE conference acceptance rates I decided to submit multiple proposals. As luck would have it, all my proposals were accepted. It made for a hectic few days!

(Photo credit to @madbenjenmar)

Cara posted the link to resources from our AR + Green Screen = App Smashing Success session on her new blog. Be sure to check it out!


She also made this video for our session. It gives an overview of two of my favorite STEAM projects and collaborations.


I finished off Monday afternoon at the Tynker booth and then at the Google Teacher Lounge.


Here is the Tynker and Google Classroom: A Perfect Match! presentation I did with Daniel Rezac. Google had someone sketchnote each of the session in the Google Teacher Lounge. Post conference Google for Edu has been sharing a few of the sketchnotes on Facebook and Twitter each day. I cannot wait to see the sketch from my session!


Debbie and I presented Special Project Enrichment Courses: Giving Elementary Students a Choice in Learning on Tuesday. The resources are available here. After that poster I ran into Leslie Fisher in the bathroom. I overheard her talking about the next session she was presenting. I was disappointed that I didn't make it to any of her sessions this year due to my schedule, but I sent Debbie. Wouldn't you know it, she shared a good music resource for the session I recommended to our music teacher. 🎶


I had only 30 minutes between poster sessions. I was exhausted after 4+ hours on my feet, but I met some wonderful people. STEAM in Action is always one of my favorites to present.



I have to say one of my highlights was getting to see Nicole Rubin present during the Young Educators Ignite Session. This is just the first few seconds of her Ignite. I was in charge of recording and got a notification on my iPad that covered the time stamp at the top. I panicked and thought it was not recording when in fact it was recording. Oops! So for now the video is in two parts. Sorry Nicole!

I spent most of my time presenting and did not make it to many sessions, but I still have a list of takeaways. Last year Cara and I planned all the LEGO SPEC courses that we then presented this year. Here are our second annual ISTE reflections.

Links mentioned: 

Links mentioned:

Links mentioned:
Wonder Projects - Seesaw Ignite from Michelle Flicek
Everyday Excellence - Seesaw Ignite from Andy Leiser 


We also wrote out two pages of plans for our next big project ideas, but those aren't ready to share yet. Hopefully those will be blog posts of their own in the next year.

Another of my favorite parts of ISTE is meeting people and making connections. This year I got to meet some of my favorites IRL.

I've become a big fan of the #ShukesandGiff podcast.  I was the one that took this picture for them at their poster. I may have geeked out about about meeting them. I'm still disappointed I missed their Ignite sessions, but I think the idea behind their poster session may be a good fit for my school. We've been talking about documenting/sharing what we do using Google sites and their district has done a great job of doing just that.


I've long admired the projects that Tricia Fuglestad has shared on Twitter. I was thrilled when I got to talk to her at our AR + Green Screen poster. She even posted about one of my projects in her Ten Takeaways from #ISTE18 blog post. I have already tried out her idea for drawing with Keynote for iPad. I also have plans this summer to try out the DoInk Animation app. My 8-year-old has seen me playing with both of these tools and is begging to have a turn.

It was a busy few days, but I loved it. I've made new connections and am already making plans for next year!



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