ISTE 2018 is now in the books. I’ve had some time to process the information and the experience.
ISTE is always overwhelming. There is a lot going on. There are thousands and thousands of people. (I know that they said they had the highest attendance ever, but I never heard how many). According to what I heard, there were over 18,000 people.
I didn’t feel as though I saw everything. There are poster sessions, presentations, and meetings that I would’ve liked to see but missed. This has always been the case. There is simply too much going on.
However, I always have a perspective of what I want to get out of the conference. For me, this year was about not getting caught up in the “shiny things”, but trying to focus on substantive topics, ideas and learning. I still believe that we get way too caught up in focusing on shiny things.
Observation 1
MicroSoft really, really, really wants back in on education. Chromebooks have eaten their lunch. MicroSoft took some really specific actions. They bought Flipgrid and made it “free” (there is an event set for August 1st which should provide more information (i.e. will an account be necessary? will students need an Office 365 account to use it?). Secondly, MicroSoft had a really big area in the vendor showroom. MicroSoft also has released a small tablet (the MicroSoft Surface Go), for the education market.
MicroSoft also had vending machines that gave out some swag provided that you tweeted with a given hashtag.
Observation 2
There were a great many more people creating Sketchnotes than I’ve ever seen. Sketchnotes are graphical notes. I went to a couple of sessions at a previous ISTE to learn about Sketchnotes. I also went to a couple of sessions specifically to learn and practice how to do Sketchnoting. However, even at sessions that had absolutely nothing to do with Sketchnoting, there were several people taking notes via Sketchnoting.
I’m still processing how this plays out in classrooms. I think that for many students, this could be a wonderful tool/strategy. It is clearly not a silver bullet that will fix everything, but the brain research seems pretty solidly behind this. Creating graphical notes seems to help the brain truly remember and understand the material. Which tools and how remains to be seen. iPads seem to have an advantage over Chromebooks for this task. However, iPads in schools come with many other issues.
Did you go to ISTE2018? What are your observations?
Hey, Troy, interesting to get your take on ISTE. I was there, too.
Regarding Flipgrid, my understanding is that users naturally have to have an account, but it’s free, it will remain free, and Microsoft has no intention of limiting access to only Office users. Here’s a quote from their education blog:
“Fans of Flipgrid can rest assured the Flipgrid they know and love, in joining Microsoft, will continue to grow and thrive across the Microsoft, Google and partner ecosystems, all while retaining its distinct brand, culture and team. Furthermore, Flipgrid will continue to be a safe, secure place for students and teachers to communicate in alignment with Microsoft’s GDPR, FERPA and COPPA compliant privacy architecture.
Read more at https://educationblog.microsoft.com/2018/06/flipgrid-microsoft-education/#JwrPoqwWBa4sflXI.99”
I agree that Microsoft is really reaching out to education. They remind me of Apple back in the day. They are becoming more open than ever before. They just made Teams free, for example. And tools like the OneNote Class Notebook integrate with Google classroom and other systems.
Regarding sketchnotes, I saw a lot of that and it makes me wish I could draw better. I think this trend is a result of another tech trend – the growing use of touch screens, pens, and digital ink. Evidence: the entry-level iPad introduced recently supports Apple Pencil. The Surface line has been very successful with its pen functionality. HP, Dell, and others now provide active stylus support in $300 Windows 2-in-1 models. And we see touch screens on Chrome devices now too.
By the way, I don’t think the S is capitalized in Microsoft. Putting a capital letter in the middle of a word is a crazy thing to do anyway, says a guy named McBain. ?