A recent press release from ISTE used some language I found rather amusing, and which was also the subject of some derision in my Twitter stream.
It describes the annual conference as “[p]art idea incubator and part collaborative workspace” and the “epicenter of forward-thinking”.
As much as I enjoy attending these events, it’s hard to associate the concepts of “idea incubator” and “forward thinking” with the very corporate approach to instructional technology inherent in much of the ISTE program and certainly when you get to the massive vendor floor at the center of it all.
But it’s difficult to expect anything else. The ISTE conference “Tier 1” sponsors, Microsoft, Pearson, Samsung, and Smart, the ones paying large amounts of money to be featured, are the very models of corporate edtech. None of those big companies are doing anything “forward-thinking” in education, at least nothing visible to the rest of us.