Let me just say it: I “resign” from any and all leadership positions in ISTE and in ISTE Virtual Environments Network. When my membership to ISTE expires in May, I do not intend to renew it. I wish the best of everything to everyone--members, leadership, staff, and administration. Lots of friends. Lots. Lots of dear memories. And all the best to ISTE VEN. Take off, y’all, take off and soar. You have some passionate and capable leaders still, focused on the future of XR (all new things 3D and alternate reality).
Over the past two plus decades, I’ve enjoyed participating in and enriching my life with my membership to the International Society for Technology and Education. The thing that I enjoyed the absolute most about those conferences was the coming together, in a different city every summer, of thousands, and increasingly more thousands of educators, technologists, vendors, and media professionals--all in the service of exploring how to serve, grow, and nurture our children’s learning through technology.
I met so many dedicated educators at those conferences, and I have carried them with me throughout the years (as they carried me) while we pursued sometimes very parallel paths. I met some very close friends at the legendary ISTE Island in Second Life. All the friends I met at ISTE converged annually at the in-person conferences. There was always a powerful feeling of reunion that struck like lightning when I would meet a colleague at the conference who I had grown to know in SL. I’ve always said there should be a word for that feeling but I never got around to coining it.
A group of us formed the Virtual Environments Network, created in order to explore and celebrate the possibilities of using virtual worlds for learning and teaching in a mainstream way. But with all our hard work, it has consistently felt, year to year, as though realization of those extremely promising models for meeting, learning, and teaching was always hangingjust below the upswing of the bell curve of adoption. Things got in the way: Second Life’s dismantling of its own educational support community, the dissolution of the Teen Grid, educators and school administrators’ aggravating addiction to “the way we’ve always done it.” ISTE's funding support dwindled in stages. It finally disappeared.
An announcement went out to the 500 members of the SL Group, ISTE Virtual Environments Network this morning. ISTE VEN in Second Life will shut down at the end of April, 2021. As far as Second Life is concerned, I will still attend some educational events, but I will lead them no more.
Hugs, smiles, and waves, ISTE.To quote a classic Tom Waits song, Marie, “I loved you the first time I saw you. And I always will always love you…”
I'm experiencing an ongoing therapeutic program designed to promote resilience in this time of societal retreat. Thankfully, my school district is footing the bill, and I admire that in an employer. Thank you Metro Nashville Public Schools.
The online platform is called Tiatros. I haven't done my research to understand the etymology of that word, but I should. Heck, let me pop out right now...
Like I say, it makes sense: Essentially, the core concept of the therapy, which includes some lecture video, some meditative audio, and some reflection in answer to questions about one's life, is that telling and sharing one's story is a healing process. I tend to agree. Anyway, I want to share one part of my story that I shared in answer to a question about a difficult effort in my life, one that has not yet been fully realized and may never be. Here it is, copied and pasted from my online response:
I have been advocating for being "together at a distance" through virtual worlds for nearly all of the twenty-five years I have been a teaching. I had elementary school students in a space called Quest Atlantis twenty years ago, and I recognized the value of immersive synchronous learning environments so strongly that I founded ISTE's Virtual Environments Network with at its core a network of educators primarily meeting in Second Life, a massive online avatar community where I have met many thought leaders who have become cherished colleagues and friends. That work still goes on, as the PLN's mission has expanded to all digital realities. I lead a daily get-together in a range of virtual spaces as we speak, today in Engage, which offers a platform on computer but primarily on 3D goggle devices, to watch educational TEDTalks and discuss them. A handful of educators from all over the world have spent two weeks in Second Life, then two in VirBELA, then these two in Engage, experiencing being together at a distance in different ways. We'll be in AltspaceVR the next two weeks then lord knows where after that. There are over 70 virtual synchronous worlds at latest count. Maybe we'll see them all. Getting the Education mainstream to pay attention has been a challenge but I'm still plugging away, with a little help from my friends. Yes, it's been difficult and confusing, until it's not. Google all that. It's a thing, and in this time when we should be exploring and considering new alternatives for learning, it's a powerful thing.
There. I got that off my chest. Now I'm sharing it with you, emphasis added in post-production. I just laughed a little. Stay well and safe.
I've said for years that any school or school district who supports Professional Learning with travel funds should REQUIRE a detailed account of how time was spent at conference or workshop. Though my "budget neutral" school district (hate that term) did not support this trip, I am in the habit of providing same. So.
Instead of my traditional rambling post or series of posts, I'm choosing to document this year's International Society for Technology in Education's annual Conference and Expo in Philadelphia with all the photos I took along with notated comments. Comments contain links to places visited, colleagues hugged, and more; including beaucoup resources from events at which I presented or which I attended. My work here is done. All I can say is--Go for it! And enjoy!
There will be a live recap discussion with Andy Wheelock and yours truly in Second Life on Tuesday, July 16, at http://tinyurl.com/istevenetwork -- join us at 5pm Pacific Time!
I will come back on over the coming week to add descriptions/comments on these, but for now this is the sum total of my pics. Some are with Colin and his lovely girlfriend Kat, some are dining, etc., and there are a few from the poster session with dear Mary Howard, the Community Networking Fair, and a whole bunch from our Games and Simulations and Virtual Environments Playground, which I pronounce a rousing success. All our planning paid off and we made tons of new friends and gained a ton of new members. I love me an educator hungry to learn more about developments in AR/MR/DR and Virtual Reality for learning and teaching. Here's the first batch of photos, from Friday night with my boy-o and his lovely girlfriend Kat to the moment, approaching PLN Happy Hour back at the Convention Center followed by the Flipgrid Party. I'll pretty this post up later, but for now:
Because of my real life work and also my dedication to my volunteer work for ISTE via our Virtual Environments Network for that organization, I don't get out much--into other worthy organizations' activities. But since I do know that the Virginia Society for Technology in Education, a remarkably active learning network in Second Life, is at the top of the list for research and community about learning and teaching in virtual worlds, I want to share a recent announcement. The ISTE VEN made a similar change in 2009, downsizing to our cozy HQ in Second Life at http://tinyurl.com/isteven, so it's not surprising, but it is noteworthy! I encourage one and all to quickly visit their Jamestown reenactment build at the link within the post before it goes away: I'm not sure whether it will be rebuilt in their new smaller location! Here's the message, posted on a sign at our HQ by our dear Beth Ghostraven (Beth O'Connell, former recipient of our annual Virtual Pioneer of the Year Award at the ISTE Conference)...
The VSTE VE PLN Is On the Move in Second Life! June 1, 2019 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VSTE%20Island/62/130/21 For over 10 years, the VSTE Virtual Environments Professional Learning Network has maintained VSTE Island, a full region in Second Life, as part of our professional development program. With a shift in focus to expanding to other virtual environments, we have decided to downsize and move to a parcel on the Second Life Mainland, with significantly lower costs. SAVE THE DATE - The new parcel will be revealed on Monday, August 19, 2019 at 8:00 pm EDT (5:00 pm SLT / Pacific time). The VE PLN will very much still be in Second Life and other virtual worlds, meeting (almost) weekly on Mondays at 8pm Eastern time. Minecraft Monday will continue on the first Monday of the month at VSTE Place, our shared Minecraft server. Our other excursions include Opensim on Avacon, Unity (including SineSpace and ViWoLe), and other virtual environments new and old. As VSTE Island Facilitator Kim Harrison says, “We need to be good stewards of VSTE's funds."
Tuesday morning Andy and I were up early for the PLN Leaders Breakfast. He worked out in the flashback exercise room while I took an hours' bike ride for a little exercise, packed my Oculus Go into my backpack, and took a Lyft, mindful of the schedule. I had a plan. A few weeks before the conference I queried ISTE Director of Community Engagement Simon Helton about a time limit he, in an earlier email, had set for PLN Award introductions. "Really? 30 seconds?" Simon had responded that yes, there is so much to get through that we have to keep it short in order to get people to presentations and the PLN Community Fair. Okay. I decided that the only way I was going to make it through this was with humor. I adapted the Girl Scout Law:
Girl Scout Law
I will do my best to be honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do, and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.
I had to narrow down my Girl Scout Law adaptation to reference only its first half, though darn, is Mary the queen of "using resources wisely," or what? But once I rephrased that portion of the Law I had only enough time to close with "In other words, she's a pretty darned perfect Girl Scout. Please join me in congratulating this year's recipient of the Virtual Pioneer of the Year Award, Mary Howard ."
After I had an image of my tiny speech I uploaded it to my Oculus Go library and had it on the library screen with the image of the little speech. The introduction was videoed by Andy, so there's no denying this happened:
Kind words from friend and Board member Dr. Sheryl NussbaumBeach on da twitter:
I'm just so proud of Mary and so happy the introduction didn't bomb!
After the breakfast, having completed our last official act, we spent time on the expo floor. We split up, and I ran into Bob and Rosie, who steered me to the Microsoft "world" on the Expo floor. Once there, I discovered amazing things about Office365, our MNPS office tools suite. I am intrigued by Immersive Reader and plan to share what I learned there and will pursue in online tutorial resources with teachers at my school. I got to view it in a 3D goggle presentation and then I had a 15 minute experience exploring Hololens! What fun. I want one at home, but at a current price tag of $3,985 per unit, I doubt we'll be using it in the classroom any time soon.
We met up for lunch at Giodarno's Pizza. But we had to have deep dish pizza in Chicago or risk being the laughing stock of our friends and families upon return home. But the PIZZA! Oh my!
The house tee-shirt the servers wore was black with white lettering: "I got stuffed in Chicago." After eating two pieces of a medium sized one I might have bought at tee, but I was feeling so plugged I felt I might have to get an XXL to fit me!
After Giordarno's Andy had to get with his NY peeps at the conference center and Mary wanted to do the Expo floor again so I headed over to the Marriott across the conference center to meet up with Jan Zanetis. She wanted to introduce me to a most interesting fellow who has a tech startup for helping young student athletes. You may well be hearing about Athlete Foundry over the near future, as they pursue a commercial model for student athlete support that sounds well-rounded, student-centered, and potentially playing-field-leveling. Perhaps more about that later.
Back at the conference, I met up with Andy and we made our way through the Poster Sessions. One of my enduring epiphanies at this year's ISTE is that one can make a conference of it without ever setting a foot into a "sit and git" session driven by a PowerPoint. We can do that in Second Life as well (and we can mirror the posters and the expo floor experiences). What we cannot do is actually be in the same physical location, looking into one another's real physical eyes, and having a conversation that has the vitality of interaction that can only be experienced in the same "meatspace." Yes, that is the term we have long used to describe physical geolocation. If you want a fun diversion (SQUIRREL!!!), check out the google results for that term.
But I digress. I just love the Poster Sessions. It's very much what like Andy, Mary, and Bob and Rosie did in the Playground--standing in one spot at a table with a display and a computer and/or other gear, and explaining how this can help one's students learn and grow. Instead of three tables, there are 50, each with a different topic.
I glommed onto one in particular that I would like to share. How could I not be drawn to the middle school Mexican lads in their khakis, blue blazers, and ties explaining their project wherein they melded language learning and science research and created presentations on dark blue painted cardboard from boxes, assembled them into "rooms," took 3D photos, and shared those on a webpage created in html? Man, I write long sentences. You may have to reread that last one aloud to get it. Somehow I feel that project deserves that sentence. The session, entitled "The Sky and Beyond: Languages and Science 3D," is described at the ISTE Program webpage, but again, for details, we needed the humans. Two young men were eager to share and did so, encouraging me to sign their poster and then to keep the school-branded pen. Their teacher shared his badge and contact info, and yes, we will be in touch!
Poster sessions are perfect for educators who are interested in a wide range of topics. And of course the Expo floor, once you understand that every person who approaches you wants to sell you something, can be a great set of learning experiences themselves.
It was time for the Tuesday Keynotes before we knew it. The highlight for me was the casual onstage interview with science fiction author Andy Weir, though I enjoyed the presentations by Katie Martin and Michael Cohen. Weir was self-deprecating and sardonically funny as he shared his rise to best-selling author from accidental software programmer. Martin was impassioned about our need to teach differently and I remarked to Mary in a whisper that her slide about student engagement in school sliding down from relatively high to very low in the elementary to middle school years could have been mined from a David Warlick presentation 20 years ago. That said, new teachers need to understand Warlick, Sir Ken Robinson, and now Martin's message warning of how creativity and imagination are schooled out of our children methodically due to the vestigial way many teachers teach, which is also the teaching method most school districts primarily support. Cohen had a similar message, focusing on creativity and showing examples of his student's work in the community instigated by students and empowered by school, not squelched by it.
We went our separate ways after keynotes, and I met up with the lovely and aforementioned Dr. Compton (see Take 1, Chicago 360/TILT) for an adventure out to the Chicago Museum for Science and Engineering. An event hosted by Microsoft and Powerschool (now a Microsoft company--everyone will be soon), we had discovered Friday that we had both been invited and had then made an assignation to meetup at the conference center to travel together. There we had (very) light hors d'oeuvres and water/soft drinks prior to sitting in the museum's theater for a filming of a Microsoft vodcast, where we were the live audience. That was interesting, but very old school, a "sit and git" in the guise of entertainment. The content was great--community service described by students, maker learning by teachers, etc., but the presentation was driven almost universally by teleprompters. No matter how sincere the presenter on stage I could not get past the fact that most were reading prepared and practiced script. I told Helen that was an hour of my life I could not get back. I was very impressed with resources at https://education.microsoft.com and will be exploring those as I plan for the coming school year at my Middle School. The exception to the rule was a spoken voice poem from artist Toney Jackson. He made us sit up and take notice. Amazing...
Thankfully we were herded off all the way through the museum to the half-dome planetarium/theatre on the other side of the building. By this time we were all buzzed to view the scheduled premier of the BBC documentary "Oceans: Our Blue Planet."
The Executive Producer, Jennifer Hile, was there and spoke a few words about the immense difficulties surrounding the filming of this movie to the steeply-assembled masses. We noshed on our box lunch turkey sandwiches, which were clearly intended to stave off starvation until the Powerschool Reception after the movie. Excitement built until an organizer came out and opened with the words, "I am so sorry to make this announcement..." You can guess the rest: No movie. Turns out the projection room in the theater was tracking 187 degrees and no tech fix was in sight. Ah, technology, can't live with it, can't live without it.
We had a drink and some finger-food at the reception in the lobby just outside the half-dome, and chatted with Jennifer Hile for quite a few minutes. She's dedicated and talented and I can't wait to see this film. It's sure to come to Nashville, likely to our Adventure Science Center, so I'll watch for it. Another good moment was the chance to introduce Helen to Mike Lawrence, former ISTE Board Member now working for Powerschool. Helen, to keep the story short, recently developed the new ISTE Teacher Certification course and was to be co-teaching an elite beta group that course in Arlington Virginia the following week. Small world? Mike will be a student in that course. He joked that now he would have it easy and she, smiling but not joking, responded in her lovely British accent, "Oh no, you must know I'll be harder on you." Sorry, Mike! And you're welcome.
We were among the first at the reception to head across the building to the buses parked in the aftermath of pouring rain. Cue the pouring rain, the long wait as the organizers decided which bus was going where, the load-on to separate buses with the quick see ya later hug, A short ride to the hotel, where I was afforded curbside service just for me at my hotel, due to having chatted with the stern but amiable driver and maybe alleviating some of his anxiety during the chaotic transition from Museum to hotels. Andy was still out. He got to the hotel and we pretty much retired, prepping for the final day of the conference, which I will not belabor.
Andy was up early in the morning to make his crack-o'-dawn flight and was gone, though I had all of the above to remember him by. Aside from the stellar closing keynote by the stellar Nadia Lopez
(my hands-down favorite of all the keynotes), we were done here.
Wednesday evening Andy and I did enjoy a final dinner at Cindy's rooftop restaurant before we hit the room, and here are a couple snaps from that:
After Andy met with his NY folks we headed down to lakeside, he should have packed and retired, since his flight back home to NY was early early. I had a quick couple of beers (they had to be gone by check-out tomorrow!) and grabbed the two Hemingway Short Stories I had packed for the trip. "Let's take a walk," I said, and we did. We walked past Buckminster Fountain one more time.
From a bicycle cart vendor, I bought a light-up helicopter toy for the beach. Lee Ann and I were planning to drive to Pawley's Island a week from the coming Thursday to enjoy some down tome. Little did I know that I would wipe out on a rental bike in Nashville and spend that week in physical rehab at Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, where I'm penning these last few lines. Suffice it to say a broken acetabulum (hip socket, essentially) cut the beach trip short. I should be home in a day or two after working my way out of the debilitating hip joint/muscle spasm stage to the 12-week projected right leg "touch only no weight bearing" stage of my healing. My wife is so great. She said, "We'll go to another beach over Christmas Break, I'm just glad you're going to be okay." I could have stayed another week in Chicago had I not so missed being with my honey. All was good and would be so.
Andy and I strolled to the lakeside and sat down. Fireworks began. I fired up cigars and my iPhone and Livestreamed Facebook. Good night. Watch...
Monday was a huge day for us. We started out by racing to the conference center, arriving at 7:00am. Our "Ready Player 101: Imagining, Creating, and Sharing Worlds in Digital Reality" Playground was scheduled to open at 8 and run to 11:30. I had scoped out the space on Saturday and I was thoroughly satisfied that we had planned this playground more thoroughly than any in the past. Well, at least since they had been re-allocated a half-day time slot. Back in the day we had full days, and before that, 3 day Playground!
I set to work establishing a working station at the presentation area, which included a 40" or so flat panel video monitor with a single PA speaker on a post stand, a tall single cocktail table, and 18 upholstered cubes for audience seating. I had scheduled connectivity testing with the three (of six) presenters who were doing so remotely. Those went well--Skype worked great for voice, Second Life was doing okay despite a low frame rate of delivery, Sinespace functioned fine over Skype desktop share, and we were good to go with sound and video by the time testing was complete.
Before the Playground
After the Playground
Rather than blow-by-blow the event, I'll just give you a set of references that will lend understanding:
The schedule (of our side):
Many of the presenters shared their slides and/or other resources, and those can all be accessed our conference "Digital Tote" folder--see
If there is something you need that you don't see there, please comment here and we'll add it to the folder.
It was crazy before it started. Sort of off in the corner during setup I was spared the pre-scheduled swarm (which proved to be prophetic), but as soon as Mary and Andy started setting up our tables they were swamped by eager conference attendees filled with curiosity and an eagerness to learn. As a result, vibrant learning sessions were already in full swing there by the time my first scheduled presentation was scheduled to begin--and it was to feature Mary and Andy! Our first flexibility was to point folks to their tables to join in on their learning sessions that way (lesson 1 of many).
My second scheduled presentation station event was difficult to "audience" (not that I can recall that word being verbed). The Playground was packed, both our side and the far side (from me) staffed by the Games and Learning PLN. Table presenters were talking and demonstrating on laptops a mile a minute. The G&S Network's presentation station, opposite ours, was full of folks, due both to Kae Novak's audience enlistment mic work and to the placement of that presentation station. I went to work on the mic, sounding a little like a carnival barker, and in a few minutes we had a tidy audience of 6 or 7 to watch Brant Knudsen login to Skype and to Second Life to share the fantastic Pirate Battle Game he uses in his classes at The University of Hong Kong. Yes, we were sharing LIVE from HONG KONG!
That is one of the best affordances of virtual worlds: a sense of presence at a distance. It's perceived co-location despite geographic remove. Brant was actually "with" us at 9am US CDT Time although he was also in Hong Kong at 10pm his own time. Groovy.
Meanwhile, the tables were rocking, and since the presenter from Unity3D had not arrived (and never did--they were swamped in their own way on the Expo floor. That turned out to be okay since there was lots of unity going on over on the G&S side), Bob Vojtek took over the 3rd table while Rosie Vojtek peopled the long table sharing info about Virtual Education Journal. Bob had an admirable pile of 3D gear laid out, including haptic controllers and a 3D camera, and he was walking people through 3D everything, many for the very first time. Andy was sharing CoSpaces and OpenSimulator with eager learners, and Mary was rocking her table with a pile of Mergecubes and sharing lesson plans for using them in the classroom. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Click to play:
Toward the end of the Playground, during the part where our connections at the presentation station was more or less taken over with a Second Life feed and the sound in SL failed us so I was looping the movies they were sharing there on the screen, I did a few minutes Facebook Live Video that I think may give you even more of a sense of how that active morning went. Here it is:
By the end of the event we agreed that it had been the best Playground in a long long time. We packed up all our gear and signage and tried to leave the space as clean and ready to set up as we found it.
Monday? Just getting started! Andy and I decided to run up to get lunch and we headed up to the place I had stopped into for dinner Saturday, Weather Mark Tavern. We had the burger lunch special-- delicious--and then got back down to the conference center for some Poster session cruising and Mary's presentation.
Mary did a stellar job with her presentation, "Is 3D for Me?" The ppt for it is available in her digital tote, and it is most definitely worth however many clicks it will take for you to get to it. I took a few pics there, too, as Mary shared everything from basic definitions of 3D to lesson plans replete with templates. Follow Mary's blog "Using Your Smarticles" to reap regular rewards from that connection. She's absolutely amazing:
Andy and I headed back up to the hotel for a bit of a rest. Shortly after we got there, our friend Caitlin Krause, just in from Switzerland, texted Andy and wanted to get together. She was going to run down (literally, run) from her hotel farther north to ours. When she texted she was here, we met her downstairs and decided to go for coffee. It was WINDY, though hot, and it was so great to catch up with her and where she is in her mindfulness journey as we strolled up to Starbucks. You can learn a bit about Caitlin at MindWise, her website, but I feel like I know more after spending only an hour or two with her. All her work, she is more and more discovering, boils down to the importance of human connections. At one point she mentioned that when people want to plumb her expertise about things mindfulness, she increasingly
finds herself talking about connections. It's a rarefied path she is on, and I look forward to following her as she nurtures her spirit and her charm and her intuitive grasp of how things work to move her work forward. Mary joined us, and later Caitlin's pal Andy. We talked a bit deep, laughed a lot, and learned what one another was doing. I suggested we head over to Buckingham Fountain (see that previous post for more) to enjoy the early afternoon. We did.
Are we still on Monday? I told you it would be a big day. Caitlin and Andy #2 left for their place and the three musketeers of virtual reality strolled inland in search of a place we could have a beer or two or three. Our presenting work was done (excepting one small Tuesday morning task for me, which turned out to be quite fun for me). We ended up at Kitty O'Shea's Pub, close to the hotel, for dinner--delicious--then at Buddy Guy's Legends, which I describe in detail in that much-referenced previous post, then put in for a good night's sleep. Here, though, you must see this (thank you, Mary!):
and this:
and finally, and good night (watch for Take 4, the finale, soon!) this:
ISTE 2018 was the best ISTE ever. I've been attending these events for a while, on the order of 20 years or so; and watching the organization grow, growing my network of friends/colleagues in the organization, and helping it grow by volunteering time to do so. In that theme, at my first ISTE event on Saturday of the conference I was awarded the President's Volunteer Service award, Bronze, for significant numbers of hours spent in volunteer activities, which included planning/meeting each week with my Professional Learning Network, chairing a proposal review committee for the conference (over 5,000 proposals were submitted this year!), presenting at other (online) conferences about our work with ISTE, and more. Last year I had worked at least as many hours but chose not to submit an due to my disdain for the supposed POTUS (yes, I'll say that here), but this year I did so and I was pleased to find that 45's name does not appear anywhere on the certificate. My two previous Service awards, a Bronze and a Silver in that order, bear the name and signature (stamped, obviously) of Barack Obama, and I cherish those. I am proud of this one as well, especially as all evidence points to the reality that Drumph knows nothing about it. Anyone who knows me should know that I oppose the dissolution of government services created to serve Americans and to protect them from corporate exploitation, and the in-progress process to channel the "savings" into profits for the rich. I'll stop. At least in this post. #resist #nevergiveup
Let's go day by day:
Friday
So. I flew into O'Hare without incident, Lyfted to the Hotel, where they had a room ready for me/us. I had requested a nice view and I'm sure they did the best they could, an 11th floor two-double room with an historic office building across the street and a nice view of the Marina and Sailors' Pier available if you went right up to the window. I got my bags in my room and hurried to make my TILT assignation, as described in my previous post. After walking my partner-in-TILT Helen to her hotel I turned heel and headed toward mine. It was 3+miles and I knew I was being ambitious; but what I didn't know was that I would get turned around, take a walking path around the main drag, and end up walking in the growing intense rain and increasing cold a mile+ past the turn off to my hotel. When I realized my mistake I called, with the last percentage point of battery life on my iPhone, a Lyft to rescue me. While I was "misplaced" I took a panoramic photo of the beach.
Notice how there are, like, no buildings anywhere nearby?
Once safely in my hotel room and out of the wet chill that predominated that Chicago evening, I holed up in my hotel room, ordered a burger from room service, and worked on details for Monday's VEN Playground, turning in at a reasonable hour.
Saturday
I rose early and worked out in the admittedly (seriously outdated) hotel exercise room. afterword, I went straight out and rented my first DIvvY bike (see that previous post). I had been scheduled to attend Steve Hargadon's "Hack Education" event, always stellar, but as the morning went on and Chicago weather just got better and better, I unconsciously made the decision to selfishly enjoy the day instead of racing down to the McCormick Place Center to finalize my conference registration and attend that event. I am certain I would have learned a lot at Hack Education, but since I paid for this trip completely on my own dime I felt like I could do that. And did.
Back at the hotel I dressed and joined other early arrivers at a PLN Core Volunteer Reception down at the rooftop of McCormick Place Convention Center. I may have mentioned that the Center is the 4th largest convention center in the nation; but I found my way uneventfully to the rooftop and enjoyed a nice spread of appetizers which drew from the immense range of international foods Chicago has to offer. I also got more annual conference hugs of the conference, including Jennifer Regan-Fore,
Vincent Barnett
Camilla Gaglioni
and
Lauren Suveges
After the reception I found walked back to the Congress Plaza hotel and did some more planning, watched the first episode of Netflix's "Kiss Me First" on my Oculus Go goggles, and retired. I actually fell asleep with the goggles on, awakening around 2 a.m. to take them off, roll over, and sleep like a kitten. Sunday
Sunday I arose early, headed out for a bike and tooled around for a couple hours. I rode into Grant Park, really headed no place in particular. I rounded a curve on the park bike trail south of my hotel and came upon a large gathering of folks, clearly assembling for a run of some sort. Many were adjusting their numbers on their shirts as a loudspeaker as the loudspeaker broadcast a beautiful voice singing the National Anthem. When it concluded, the announcer encouraged a round of applause for Lee Ann Rimes. Ah, a little touch of Nashville on this fine Chicago morning!
I returned to the hotel, cleaned up, and I hopped into a Lyft to McCormick Place as I was running a bit tight on time.
In the hallway I got a whole load of new ISTE-annual hugs, featuring Jan Zanetis, Kecia Ray, Jessica Medaille, Kathy Schrock, and many others. I was glad to collect one from Mary Howard, my good friend and colleague, who arrived from the airport just as the the entree was served. I had saved her salad for her though! Annual award winners were announced, celebrated, and received their awards, and I felt honored to be in a room with so many dedicated folks. This is the event were I received my bronze Presidential Service award and Mary received her silver.
As we were leaving the Awards Luncheon, I had the best experience bumping into an idol of mine, David Warlick. Dave was only there for a couple of hours, having more or less crashed the conference to attend the Awards Luncheon: He is a recipient of the coveted "Making IT Happen" award, a high honor ISTE only gives to 5 or so educators every year at the traditional luncheon. I had forgotten to pack mine, but I remember the feeling of being so honored an organization with over 20,000 members. Anyway, I was so pleased to chat with him and to hear he is putting finishing touches on a new book. Semi-retired, Dave enjoys godlike status in my esteem, an elite educational thought leader when "Web 2.0" was only beginning to flourish. His educational perspectives and philosophies have guided my practice for over a decade.
Mary had gone off to check into her hotel--she had come straight to the luncheon after dropping her bags--and I headed for the Posters area of the conference to get set up our little booth for the annual ISTE PLN Networking Fair. This is a 2+ hour walk-up share-out about our network, one of the more than 20 groups of ISTE members who benefit from Network leadership offerings around educational topics year-round. I think that our Virtual Environments Network may be the only one that meets weekly all year long, mostly because virtual worlds afford us the opportunity to do so in ways far superior to a conference call on any platform. Every week the core members of our group meet up and offer the opportunity to all of the more than 1700 members who have indicated they want to stay in touch with VEN that way. You can learn all about what we do at our PLN website. Mary Howard and I set it all up and were joined midway by the erstwhile Bob and Rosie Vojtek, who had only the day before dropped the AMAZING summer issue of our network's Virtual Education Journal. To see that one with one click, visit
To read all the amazing issues of this publication, now in its third great year, visit http://issuu.com/edovation.
During the Fair, we met with countless interested educators, many new to the conference. It's a whole new group of educators who have the potential to help leverage 3D learning technologies into a huge plus-plus for our young people (and for other educators!) so we were diligent in detailing as many of the prospects as we could in as many conversations as we could have. Here are a few pics from that whirlwind event:
The Fair over, we hustled over to the "Special Entrance" to the Opening Keynote. It always makes me feel special that ISTE admin lets us sneak in and go down front, especially here with the record number of attendees (24,000 plus). Each element of the program was great, especially the four students
interviewed on an onstage panel. Two were high school students and two in college, and they discussed the ways they had used technology to help their communities. All four of them were soooo well-spoken, clearly dedicated, and ready to keep serving and improve their dedication and execution of service to others, and on a global scale. This could not help but give the attendees at least a glimmer of hope in these times, so dark for America.
The Keynote, David Eagelton, brain researcher and author, made a legitimate case that we are not teaching students who have the same kinds of brains as we have, and that instruction must change to support optimal learning. Watch a brief recap:
With record conference turnout, he had a good receptive crowd in that room. He paced back and forth as he made his points and substantiated them, and my only criticism is that he went a bit long. Still, it was a good start to the keynotes.
After the keynote, Mary and I parted ways. Mary had not yet checked into her room at the Hyatt attached to the conference center, so she ran along to do that and I headed back up to my place on a bike and worked some more on plans for Monday, our biggest day. Andy got in from his flight and came in to the room around 8:30 p.m., and as always it was like meeting up with a long lost brother after a year's absence. Sure ,we talk online at least weekly, but despite what our virtual educational focus might lead one to think, there's nothing as real as really being together. He dropped his bags and we walked to get a bite to eat, landing at the South Loop Tavern, an Irish Pub with Irish servers and Irish food. We hiked back to the hotel, stopping by Whole Foods Market for hotel room beer--a six-pack of Sinister IPA for me and a local red beer for the Spiff (Andy's Second Life avatar's first name). We were out like two lights pretty soon, wisely choosing to stock up on rest in order to prepare for our big Monday at ISTE!
I think I've rambled on enough for now, and I can promise at least one more post about the
Starting this on the plane on the way home from what I am currently feeling is my best ISTE ever. Because of that, I believe I will just blog a sentence or two about my best experiences at this best event. So. The first installment will mainly focus on my take on the Windy City and things that I did on this trip outside the realm of ISTE, what I'm calling "Extra-Conference Fun." Don't get me wrong, there's lots to talk about from the conference. If I try to get it down in one post, it'd be book length, so I intend to split it up. Let’s get started.
Chicago
I had never really been to Chi-town, and wow, was I wowed. I booked our hotel room months prior using booking.com (“our” refers to the estimable Andy Wheelock, a brother-from-another-mother and my partner in VEN antics and accomplishments) and I had been intrigued by the historic nature of the Congress Plaza Hotel, and it all worked out extraordinarily well. With very few exceptions, everywhere in this vibrant city that I went I was cordially greeted and well-served. I begin by listing topics and will come back and fill in. Wish me luck.
Chicago 360 & TILT
A while back, my good friend Dr. Helen Crompton responded to my Facebook post about TILT with a challenge. I of course accepted, because who wouldn’t lean 45 degrees out of a 94th story window to spend an hour with Helen? Here’s a Chicago Tribune news story about the attraction and here are a few pics:
photo: Dr. Helen Crompton
photo: Dr. Helen Crompton
Congress Plaza Hotel
...is haunted. I didn't have any experiences my first two nights, but Sunday night, when Andy had arrived, we'd popped out to South Loop Pub for a sandwich and a beer (thanks, Mave, for the friendly service and for being our first of many Irish servers in Chicago) and retired. We slept soundly, but sometime during the night the toilet flushed. It wasn't Andy and it wasn't me, so our only logical conclusion is that the haunt had to go potty. Or maybe it was that gangster who was drowned in a different toilet in the hotel. Built in 1893, it's loaded with history and by gum, despite some cosmetic update needs, we enjoyed staying there. I booked 'way early through booking.com, and we enjoyed a rate that was around half of the standard one! I'm just making it up about the drowned gangster.
DIvvY
I discovered DIvvY (clever spelling with the two v's lower case emphasizing the DYI) after I had done several Lyfts and immediately after my first one in prime time--EXPENSIVE!) and it both saved my wallet and supported my efforts to lose weight. I had lost around 8 pounds with a new daily workout regimen prior to hitting Chicago and though I gained most of it back #eatingChicago it would have been much worse if I hadn't converted some of that fine food to leg muscle with DIvvY. Bike racks are all over the place and at $15 +tax one can hop on a 3 speed bike and just GO, with unlimited 3 hour rides. Convenience, ease of use, and fun=10 of 10. There was one glitchy day my last one when the nearest bike rack was full and the ensuing efforts to grab a bike frustrated my efforts to get to the conference center for my Volunteer shift (I never made it and was excused but I did get to keep the cool deep purple teeshirt). The app tells you where the racks are and how many bikes are there, but it doesn't update that number often enough and I passed up the nearest rack which was full but down/offline/locked to hit the next two which showed two and four bikes respectively but were empty when I got there. Fix that, DIvvy!
Lyft
Lyft was my go-to "I'm running late and I need to get there as fast as I can" tool. The drivers were almost uniformly friendly and capable. And Andy and I were easily able to hit the "Share" button on the app so we kept our 50/50 deal alive and well easily.
Yolk
Best. Breakfast. Ever. Great service from Sophia, and we ordered identical breakfasts. Unless your dietary inclinations forbid, don’t pass up the following, scarfed from the breakfast menu online.
CORNED BEEF HASH & EGGS
House made corned beef, seasoned potatoes, green pepper and onion.
Two eggs any style. Toast, pancakes or english muffin.|14breakfast.
Awesome! Go Yolk!
Buddy Guy's Legends
If I had to pick my favorite "non-curricular" event of the conference it may be a tie, but the tie would be broken by a signed first-day-of-release vinyl album and a picture with the man himself. Andy and Mary and I had just popped in for a beer at the bar and, being poor teachers, were inclined to balk at the ten dollar cover charge, though we paid up and found three of the only very few seats left in the house. Tables were full and we had the clear intuition that something was going on in the club: full tables on Monday night? It was announced that it was "Jam Night" and the band onstage commenced to hammering out some right fabulous blues. A bit later on it was announced that the 82 year-old Buddy was at the bar. We all turned and saw him, sitting quietly with a small entourage around him, dressed snazzily in a black shirt and white pants. The announcer also said that his new album "Buddy Guy: The Blues is Alive and Well," had dropped today and was available for purchase on vinyl and CD at the cashier stand. I stood up, walked over, and purchased the vinyl, a heavy gauge double record set with a simple design featuring full cover photographs of Buddy on each face. While I was paying the cashier, a man behind the counter ripped off the shrink wrap and grabbed a sharpy then walked over to the bar and Buddy signed it! I honestly think I bought the first copy sold at Buddy Guy Legends! A few minutes later Mary grabbed my hand and walked me over to approach Buddy Guy. "You have a big fan here, Mr. Guy, would you let me take your picture with him?" That happened. Thank you, Mary!!! Here's the proof:
Buckminster Fountain
My first day in Chicago, my first "wake up in Chicago" day, the weather was so gorgeous I decided to bike around South Loop, enjoying the lovely gardens, the paved bike trails, the wholly beautiful lakeshore, and Buckminster Fountain. Donated to the city and fired up in 1927, it is a memorial to Clarence F. Buckingham by his philanthropist sister, and it is recognized as one of the largest memorial fountains in the world. I took a 3D image on my iphone with the Occipital3D app and, despite some missing patches it turned out pretty well:
I had heard about it, had made foiled plans to visit it with a colleague, and I had to see it up close. I biked over up the bike trail north then cut underneath a dark overpass to get to Cloud Park where the Bean resides. Once there, after a couple failed attempts, I had a decent Facebook Live 2 minute video. Watch ...
I think the Bean is a great place to leave off. Next episode I will focus on the fantastic conference itself.
G'day!
