That's right, just five weeks until ISTE 2013 begins! I have paid my registration, booked my flight and hotel room, and now I just have to wait a little longer...
I began looking at the program online the other day and am excited that there will be so many great sessions and keynotes to attend. Gamification in education has been a hot topic for the past couple years, so I'm really looking forward to Jane McGonigal's opening keynote. The idea of capitalizing on students' love of games and the amount of time that they dedicate on a daily basis to playing them and somehow bringing some of that interest into the classroom is always enticing to me as I'm trying to think of ways to build students' interests in traditional classroom content. Perhaps we should be taking a lesson from students and morphing that traditional content and 20th Century delivery system to match better with student interests to move in the direction of personalized learning which will allow the educational system to offer students an opportunity to engage in a more student-centered, collaborative system driven by student choice.
This year I am hoping to actually have a plan of which sessions I want to attend created in advance. Wishful thinking? We'll see as the school year winds down if I can squeeze in the time to check out the online program in more depth.
