Getting ready for ISTE

I'm excited!  In just 2 weeks I'll be in San Diego and attending ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference.  I have only a little idea of what to expect as an ISTE newbie so I'm reading all I can to help me prepare.  I have attended a conference in San Diego before - I was there as a presenter at the International Reading Association pre-conference in 1999.  My memories are that it was absolutely huge!  When I look at the details for ISTE I think it will be even bigger - I see that last year there were 18,000 attendees and that 10,000 of these connected to the conference wireless network each day!

So I have started to plan ahead.  One of my new colleagues has already shared her planner with me which was very helpful  - I've been able to look at the group planner and to add my own sessions onto that.  However there are so many sessions I want to get to - and many are at the same time as others that I have marked down as "must sees".  I will need to have a serious think about this before I arrive.

On the Sunday I'm attending the Global Education Summit.  This is a mini conference that is a follow up to the online Global Education Conference.  I'm keen to participate in this as a way of globally connecting students and teachers.

On the Monday I want to attend the session on using 1:1 iPads in primary and I want to attend the session on learning spaces to support 21st century learners.  However these are both at the same time so I'm leaning towards the latter as I'm keen to know more about these as I'm moving to a brand new campus that has been designed with these learning spaces in mind.  There are a lot of sessions about iPads (of course!) and in preparation I went out and bought myself a new one yesterday.  I'm sure that during the week I'll get to a number of iPad presentations.  I'm also keen to attend sessions on BYOD as this is the way my new school is moving (yaay!)

The following day I'm planning on attending the presentation on what it means to be a digital leader.  There are several sessions about this during the week, including leadership in 21st century schools.  I'm also keen to get more insights into PD and tech integration.

As the week goes on I'm planning on attending sessions on blogging, literacy and numeracy in the digital age and new media and technologies in early childhood education.  I'm grateful that my new school is supporting my attendance at ISTE, even before I official start working for them!

Other advice I've read is to hang out in the lounges and participate in the conversations in the blogger's cafe.  The lounges are designed to stimulate networking - and I'm really looking forward to trying to connect with members of my PLN that I haven't met in person there.

I will be taking notes - and blogging of course (though probably only after the conference is over and I'm on holiday with the family in the UK).  It's such a marvelous experience - and I want to enjoy every minute of it while I am there.

Photo Credit:  Into by Gisela Giardino, 2008