OTAN News

Take Advantage of ISTE Conference Resources

The 2019 ISTE Conference has come and gone, and we at OTAN have gathered a lot of ideas and resources to explore further as we come up on a new school year. (We also saw the Liberty Bell and had a cheesesteak or two while in Philadelphia!)

Even if you did not attend ISTE, many conference presentation slides and handouts are freely available for anyone to access and review. The starting point is the ISTE 2019 Program Search Page on the conference website, which you can search in a number of ways:

• Filters to narrow your search are on the left side of the page (on the desktop). By opening the More filter, you will find many ways to see sessions related to various items, such as focus or topic, subject, and audience. Some of the acronyms you might encounter include BYOD for Bring Your Own Device (which tend to be hands-on sessions) and PLN for professional learning network.
• Use the search box in the upper left-hand corner (on a desktop) to search for names and terms. For example, there were many Google, Microsoft, and Apple sessions presented by people from those companies as well as teachers. In addition, if you use a particular tech tool such as Kahoot, Peardeck, or Flipgrid, you can search on the name of the tool or product to find sessions. You can also search on terms in the search box such as assessment, professional development, project-based learning, digital citizenship, equity, and many others to find related sessions.

One other resource to explore is the Twitter hashtag #notatiste, contributed to and followed by those unable to attend the conference in person. Many posts from specific sessions are referenced in this Twitter conversation.

And don't forget that next year's ISTE conference will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center from June 28 to July 1. For those who have never been, be aware that it will begin on Sunday and continue through Wednesday. Start saving your professional development funds and consider attending ISTE 2020!