This coming week is going to be a busy one for me, but also a lot of fun.
First is the JOSTI conference, presented every year at Thomas Jefferson High School, our local magnet school for science and technology, and organized by some very talented people in our district. JOSTI, the Jefferson Overseas Schools Technology Institute, is sponsored by the US State Department and brings a relatively small group teachers and tech support people to the DC area from American schools all over the world for a week-long conference on better using technology for instruction.
On Wednesday I’ll be doing sessions on two of my favorite subjects, Google’s mapping resources and coping with information overload. But the real pleasure in JOSTI is the opportunity to meet some wonderful, enthusiastic educators working in very interesting places.
The next day we leave for Atlanta for the ISTE conference. However, it’s the pre-conference activities I’m most looking forward to.
Friday we have Hack Education, which is sort of an un-conference that started life as EduBloggerCon seven years ago in the very same place. The event has grown and become somewhat more organized over the years,1 now with sponsors and everything, but it’s still attracts a mixture of wonderful people and always fosters some great discussions.
However, I’ll only be able to stay the morning this time since that afternoon I’ll be leading one of the table discussions at theMobile Mega Share event presented by the Mobile Learning Network (formerly ISTE SIG for Mobile Learning). In my little corner of the room we’ll be sharing ideas and tools for managing your information from anywhere on whatever device you have. There will be lots of other great conversations related to mobile learning going on and I think space is still available, so if you’d like to join us for the afternoon, register here (it’s free).
Most years at ISTE, the annual photowalk would happen the next morning, the day of the opening keynote.2 Unfortunately, Larry Anderson and Craig Nansen, the organizers who started the whole idea, will not be in Atlanta this year so we may have to cobble together an impromptu walk with whoever is willing. Or I may just be photo walking alone.
Saturday afternoon I’m going to try and attend the Global Education Summit, hosted by Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon, a series of discussions and activities focused on global connecting and learning. I’ve never participated in this particular event but it sounds promising and includes some interesting people.
Oh, and then the actual ISTE conference begins.
And if all of that wasn’t enough to fill my week, Monday I also begin facilitating a new online course, one which I wrote, on using Google’s various mapping tools for instruction. As I said, one of my favorite subjects and one very much under utilized and under appreciated resource in most schools. Fortunately, the first week is orientation so much easier to do from a remote location on an iPad.
Anyway, if you happen to be in the same place at the same time as any of the above, please say hi and introduce yourself. For now, I better get back to finishing my presentations and editing the class.