The Best of IsteLive 2023

The ISTE 2023 Conference was just held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though we covered the ISTE 2022 conference extensively, we didn’t attend this year. But we’be been keeping an eye on it 

One excellent source for some information is a podcast called EdTech Bites. Gabriel Carrillo does a great job of covering interesting topics combining discussing Edtech topics and talks about food. In this podcast he talks about ISTE 2023 and Philly Cheesesteak with Al Thomas, (That’s AL with an “L” and not AI with an I) the founder and CEO of Educopilot. 

One of the sessions Al with an L led was on making One-Minute Documentaries. He included a handout and recommended people check out the 60-Second Docs Youtube channel, including this documentary on a teenage drummer.

Teen Drummer | The Warning Band // 60 Second Docs – YouTube

Another topic that was big at ISTE 2023 was AI, this time with an I.  

MicrosoftEdu was especially visible and announced new developments and updates.They let educators get their hands on the latest Learning Accelerators and Minecraft worlds, created the ISTE 2023 Learn Challenge and released a free collection of learning modules open to everyone.

Chancellor David Banks of NYC public schools is putting a system in place to gather data and provide insights about student performance to more than 100,000 teachers and administrators via Power BI Dashboards.

Finally, one of the things that ISTE has always strived to do is recognize and highlight educational leaders, districts and teachers from all over the world for work. This year there was an extensive list. Los Angeles Unified, along with Atlanta Public Schools, and Parkway School District won the Distinguished District Award. I was especially happy to learn that Rose Luckin, a professor of learner-centered design at UCL Knowledge Lab in Brighton, UK. Luckin’s research involves the design and evaluation of educational technology using theories from the learning sciences and techniques from artificial intelligence, AR and VR. 

ISTE is a conference with a heavy focus on teachers and always manages to bring more K-12 educators than any of the other big EdTech conferences. In the current climate, which is still so difficult for teachers, it is wonderful that organizations can step up and give teachers a round of applause for their good work.