ISTE13: Educators Hack Their Own Education

Hand educators an open wiki schedule and watch them organize themselves around the topics they want to discuss. Educators know what they want to learn. In the spirit of an Edcamp unconference model, Hack Education participants collaborated on creating the day’s schedule by suggesting topics and volunteering to facilitate discussions. This year’s hot topics are a preview to what we’ll see at ISTE:

Personalized learning;
Fostering deeper learning;
1:1 implementations;
BYOD;
Tech integration with limited resources;
Making apps;
Learning with social media;
Gamification;
Minecraft;
Maker spaces;
Teacher management tools;
Teacher preparation;
21st century professional development;
Technology coaching;
Global collaboration;
Teaching with Google Glass. (Check out the upcoming interview with Adam Bellow and his experience with Glass!)

Organized by Steve Hargadon and Audrey Watters of Hack Education, the unconference is traditionally held the day before the official ISTE launch. It's continued to grow because these educators embrace the opportunity to be fully integrated into the discussion, rather than simply absorbing information in more traditional sessions. Educators want to share and learn from each other.

Though Audrey helped organize the event, she was unable to attend at the last minute. Exciting news for Audrey will be announced next week related to her absence!

Formerly SocialEdCon and EduBloggerCon, this year’s Hack Education also saw more edtech startups listening in on the conversations. If you want to design products that meet the needs of educators, go to discussions like these where teachers share what matters to them.

And Steve knows how to throw an after party! Even folks who weren't able to arrive in time for the day's sessions stopped by to catch up with colleagues and friends before the full-blown craziness of ISTE begins.

If you attend future ISTEs, flying out a day early for Hack Education is well worth your time!