Memories from Day 1 at ISTE 2013 with Beyond Technology

Around 20 thousand educators, thousands of vendors, and 100s of daily workshops are part of the San Antonio, TX ISTE Conference this year. It was an overwhelming spectacle to take in. The opening keynote, Jane McGonigal, was interesting and engaging, sharing her perspective on gaming in education. She kicked off the conference on Sunday night. Monday was full of workshops to attend and showcases to visit. 

Melisa, Rick, and I decided the best strategy was to divide our resources and each attend a different workshop at every time slot. Morning and afternoon workshops were full of new tools, new ways to use familiar tools, and new perspectives of technology education. We had a few minutes for lunch and about an hour to check out the exhibits.

Microsoft made quite an aggressive move for presence in education by giving away 10,000 Surface RTs to educators who received permission from their district to receive one. Google showcased its support of the Nexus 7 as their move to have a tablet presence in schools. They are working to develop more educational apps for the fall rollout.

It’s been quite exciting with tons of information to process! In the evening we have taken in the local sites and culture enjoying dinner on the River Walk. Dinner has been our time to relax, recoup and share all of the great information that we absorbed. Day 2 was another full day.