Education Disney Land. An exposition hall full of technology related companies. And the most valuable educational resource of all... people, lots of #eduallstars and #edurockstars.
All I can say is “WOW!” I’m completely exhausted. Honestly I was ill-prepared for the amount of networking and the overload of stimulation.
People always say that ISTE is big, but until you experience it, you can’t simply have a true understanding of it.
Over the course of the two days I was there, (I couldn’t make it to the beginning of the conference. It started last Friday), I had the opportunity to talk face to face with many folks I’ve been communicating with for years in some cases online and we had a chance to share our passions.
Perhaps one of the highlights of the conference was the Connected Educator Panel Session where Mark Barnes and I had the opportunity to talk about blogging and curation. The main word that came up in our discussions was reflection and so much of blogging is reflection.
Participants shared their fears about blogging, but my biggest message to non-bloggers is being connected is all about sharing. If you consume other people’s blogs regularly, you owe it to us to share your voice and story too. We care and no one does you and your story better than you. So start a blog and share it with me :) I want to read it.
Along with the Corwin Panel, I also did a poster session and that was not for the faint of heart. Two hours of meeting and greeting passers by to talk about digital storytelling, a topic that is close to my heart. People had lots of interesting questions and were curious about the board we had set up. It was a lot of fun.
In two days there was much to be done and many folks to be met. It was awesome to be able to put real faces with the avatars and voices with the conversations as well as see old friends and make new ones too.
Honestly, I’m still kind of shell-shocked from the experience. Never would I have guessed how important my work is to people and I was so honored and humbled that so many people feel like they know me. So thank you for taking the time to find me, hug me and grab a selfie! Make sure you tag me in the pictures.
Focus is not a friend right now, so I apologize for the brevity of this post and for it’s scattered nature, but I’m not going to stress about it, just like I told you guys not to. Blogging is like teaching, sometimes there are great lessons that knock the ball out of the park and others are not meant to be repeated, but you still learn something from them.
So that’s what this post is for me. I’m starting to gather my thoughts. I’m sure more will be revealed in the next few days.
You know what I do... so now share what you do.
What were your takeaways from ISTE? And if you weren’t there, what did you want to learn or who did you want to meet? Please share