ISTE Unplugged 2014

I always plan to arrive the day before ISTE officially starts so that I can attend ISTE Unplugged. This great unconference is organized by Steve Hargadon, Audrey Watters, and Lucy Gray.

Steve Hargadon

On Friday, June 27, I attended Hack Education (formally EduBloggerCon) with about 300 other educators from 8-4. I was amazed that over half of the people in attendence were doing so for the first time. This event celebrated its 8th birthday this year. There was quite a buzz in the air as people connected or reconnected with members of their online PLN.

Some of the participants gathered for Hack Education 

My Mentor from Classroom 2.0 Live Peggy George

Reconnecting this year with +Anibal Pacheco  Photo Credit - @MyClassFlow

The participants determine how the day will be structured by suggesting a discussion they would like to see facilitated. The sessions are then voted on and the schedule is made. I attended sessions on Leadership in a Digital Age, Digital Citizenship, Building Teacher/Student PLNs Using Social Media, and helped facilitate Twitter Tips for Newbies.

Digital Citizenship Discussion Photo Credit - Kristy Vincent

The conversations are rich and thought-provoking and I always learn new things to take back to my classroom. My Big 3 Takeaways from this year are: 

1. Digital Citizenship should become just Citizenship (thank you @TanyaAvrith) and needs to be taught daily. 
2. Get parents more involved in all that I do with my students especially when using social media.
3. Help my students build their learning networks through global collaborations and projects. 

Here are some more pictures I took during this event. 

Wearing Wanda Terral's Google Glass

Paula Boston and Heather Temske

Nancy Blair, Len Horn, Karrie Vitti

Nick Provenzano, Scott Floyd, Beth Still, Anibal Pacheco

Richard Byrne and Steve Dembo

Billy Krakower and Susan Bearden

Check out all of the tweets from #HackEd14 in this Storify thanks to Craig Yen. Craig did a fabulous job of curating links for those #notatISTE. 

Did you attend #HackEd2014? What are your Big 3 Takeaways? 

So Glad I Went to #ISTE2014 Early

Last year at ISTE in San Antonio, my dear friend from Hawaii, JoAnn Jacobs, and I made a pact to arrive in Atlanta early so that we could spend some quality time with each other before the craziness that is ISTE begins. And am I glad we did!

JoAnn, and I met up at the airport in Atlanta on the Wednesday before ISTE along with Jan Wells, my buddy from Kansas. (Read about my first F2F meeting with Jan here.)

We shared a shuttle ride to drop off JoAnn off at her hotel, and Jan and I checked into our condo at the Peachtree Towers Condos that we were sharing with Beth Still and Kristina Peters. After getting settled in, we met JoAnn for dinner at Alma Cocina, an upscale Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a relaxing time catching up. After returning to the condo, Kristina graciously helped me update my iPhone so I could download the Voxer app. She set up a Voxer group for Beth, Jan, me, and herself and dubbed us the "Peachtree Peaches". 

On Thursday we had a full day of sightseeing and meeting other friends who also decided to arrive early. JoAnn, Jan, Beth, and I started our day at 9:00 at the Georgia Aquarium. I love our aquarium in New Orleans, but was awed by this one. 

We had tickets for the 11:30 showing of Dolphin Tales and it was fabulous. So glad we booked this show and that Beth talked me into seating in the third row. I was worried about getting wet but that didn't happen. What did happen was we had a terrific view of the show. I LOVE dolphins. 

Next we had a nice lunch at BajaFresh with friends from all over the US. In the picture are Margie Rogers (MO), Jan (KS), Carrie Ross (TX), Kristy Vincent (TX), Beth Still (NE), me (LA), Adam Bellow (NY), JoAnn (HI), and Michelle Baldwin (CO). 

Then we headed to the World of Coca-Cola. Besides tasting different Coke flavors from around the world, we enjoyed the 4D show complete with 3D glasses. It gave us lots of laughs. 

Jerry Blumengarten and Bill Krakower met us right after we finished the Coke tour. I love Jerry's sign. 

Our day ended with a gathering for dinner at Sweet Georgia's Juke Joint. What a great place! We had a table right up front for the jazz band that played that night. The Mar-tans play a mixture of New Orleans funk and R&B, but I like to think they were playing in honor of those of us from the NOLA area. Great times with great friends, great food and music, and even a little moonshine. I even lead a second line around the place when the Mar-tans played Mardi Gras Mambo. 

Susie Toso (@SusieToso),  Jan Wells (@JanWells),  Marcie Hebert (@mrsmhebert), Amanda, Martin (@mandymartin1021),  me,  Jerry Blumengarten (@Cybraryman1),  Bill Krakower (@wkrakower),  JoAnn Jacobs (@JoAnnJacobs68),  and Margie Rogers (@mawrogers). 

We had an awesome day in Atlanta and were definitely ready for some shut-eye. If you are going to attend #ISTE2015 in Philadelphia and plan to do some sightseeing while there, I would strongly suggest going early to do so.  I am always so tired when ISTE ends that all I want to do is go home and sleep for a couple of days. 

JoAnn and I started making plans for next year even before we left Atlanta. So start making your plans and arrive early in Philly. I hope to see you there.