ISTE 2015

Today is the last day of the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference. It has been quite a ride.

Throughout the three days (well, two so far), I keep thinking back to this quiz I saw randomly on Facebook a few weeks ago, 21 Signs You Might Actually Be an Ambivert.

ISTE is overwhelming. There's all these people. Many of them are Rockstars in the Educator twitter world. I found a quiet spot in the oasis, and it was great to know that there was a quiet place I could go to not be found and recharge.

What happened to that life of the party I thought I am, I asked myself (silently, from my quiet corner).

It's pretty easy to be the life of the party when there's people I know, but holy cow I can't deal when I don't know anyone. I'm really not sure how this will translate to moving to a new job, should I ever pursue that, but I digress.

So, what have I learned so far? I've actually spent a great deal of time seeking elementary math resources. I realize this doesn't make sense, but since I am working with an elementary school this summer in developing their K-2 math curriculum, this seemed like a good place to begin.

I've gone to a few sessions. The best one was more of a talk by one of the aforementioned Twitter rockstars about creating a culture of innovation. It was enlightening and reassuring and also made me feel like I have a really long way to go. Like I said, it's been a challenging series of days.

I've thought about things I want to do better... interestingly, it seems I'm already embracing some of the current trends (which means I need to get on the front end of something new, since the bandwagon has caught up). These include: Flipped Classroom, 20% Time/Genius Hour. As I reflected, I realized we didn't receive a bunch of comments on the 20% blog this year. I want to work on that. Was it because their writing wasn't really communicating much... maybe. Was it just not enough connections were made... maybe. I want to work more closely with another 20 time teacher to get more discussion going, to get better reflection writing happening, to make the reflection process meaningful rather than simply something the students complete to get a homework grade.