I am constantly in a line (for food, for a session, for the bathroom), and the Wifi is quite frankly worse than it is at home, and yet the experience of ISTE is one that is incomparable to any other.
Where else, would you be in contact with about 15,000 other like-minded educators who know that teaching can look differently? That student-centered learning yields remarkable results, and that technology can help students to create and share in ways we could have never imagined?
Kevin Carroll (in his keynote address today) said that the moment he committed himself to the path he had chosen, providence set in; everything he needed to be successful just fell into place.
And so it is with ISTE, I think. Once you commit yourself to being a part of this amazing energy, that is bigger than anything you’ve experienced before, you can’t help but go back to your classroom and commit to transformation.
Even though I know it will take weeks to digest all of the information that has come my way, I think there is no better PD in the world and no better opportunity to connect. Because even though we have Twitter and Google Plus and other collaborative virtual tools, we thrive on the face-to-face connections that validate us as a part of something bigger, and that dispel the belief that we’re just outliers in our lives back home.
Cheers to all you amazing educators in ATL! Looking forward to Philadelphia in 2015!
