ISTE Day 1 Reflections - Mario Armstrong, Keynote
What a great way to finish my first year as a Technology Staff Developer - a trip to Denver for the mother of all ed-tech conferences, ISTE (formerly NECC). I'm excited to absorb, learn, network, and take lots of notes for the folks back home at Evanston Township High School.
After landing in Denver this morning and checking into my hotel, I took the light (and very fast) rail system from Cherry Creek straight into downtown Denver, conveniently landing just outside the Colorado Convention Center. After walking past that Big Blue Bear outside (someone get him a ticket!), I made my way to volunteer check-in and served my 2-hour shift passing out raffle tickets. Quick shout out to a group of very enthusiastic teachers from Louisiana. Who knew handing out tickets for water bottles and raffle tickets could be so fun?
Inside the theater, we saw NPR's Mario Armstrong do an admirable job with a corny, yet effective script as members of ISTE leadership tried to hype up the crowd in this opening keynote. One Kindle, iPod Touch, Netbook, and iPad giveaway later (these were cleverly woven into the presentation), and we were let loose into the convention center to begin networking.
I chose to visit several of the SIG groups, particularly the Online Learning group and the Teacher Educators group. After taking a few laps around the convention center to get myself acclimated (water, bathrooms, coffee, food, check!), I decided to call it a day, as I spent the bulk of the train ride home paging through the uber-thick conference program. The day starts bright and early at 8:30am with a SMARTBoard workshop.
After landing in Denver this morning and checking into my hotel, I took the light (and very fast) rail system from Cherry Creek straight into downtown Denver, conveniently landing just outside the Colorado Convention Center. After walking past that Big Blue Bear outside (someone get him a ticket!), I made my way to volunteer check-in and served my 2-hour shift passing out raffle tickets. Quick shout out to a group of very enthusiastic teachers from Louisiana. Who knew handing out tickets for water bottles and raffle tickets could be so fun?
Inside the theater, we saw NPR's Mario Armstrong do an admirable job with a corny, yet effective script as members of ISTE leadership tried to hype up the crowd in this opening keynote. One Kindle, iPod Touch, Netbook, and iPad giveaway later (these were cleverly woven into the presentation), and we were let loose into the convention center to begin networking.
I chose to visit several of the SIG groups, particularly the Online Learning group and the Teacher Educators group. After taking a few laps around the convention center to get myself acclimated (water, bathrooms, coffee, food, check!), I decided to call it a day, as I spent the bulk of the train ride home paging through the uber-thick conference program. The day starts bright and early at 8:30am with a SMARTBoard workshop.
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