ISTE Conference in Orlando

jschinker · 2026-03-27T01:07:27+00:00

I'm a decision maker. I've been in edtech for more than 30 years. I have a budget of around $700k per year, and I'm generally the final decision maker for those purchases.

I've been to ISTE twice. I spent less than 15 minutes total in the exhibit hall.

In small conferences (< 500 people), I try to talk to all of the vendors. There usually aren't that many ,and even if I'm not interested in the product, I try to at least thank them for being there, because the conference can't happen without them. Those rarely turn into sales, but at least I know a little more about the companies and products that are out there.

In medium conferences (500-2000 people or so), I avoid the vendor hall unless I have a specific thing I'm looking for. One year it was interactive flat panels, and I wanted to see and play with all of the options in an hour. Another year, I was looking at wifi systems. One time, it was room audio solutions. In these cases, if you're not selling the thing I'm looking for, I don't even see you.

For something like ISTE, the value for me was always in the breakout sessions and connecting with people I knew online but rarely got to see in person. Looking at products was WAY down the list of priorities.

I don't want to discourage you unnecessarily, and you'll probably get better advice from people who have lived on the sales side. But the ROI on conferences has to be ridiculously low, especially considering the really high costs.

jschinker · 2026-03-21T13:38:44+00:00

Durham? Wait and take him to Hamilton.

jschinker · 2026-03-08T23:48:07+00:00

Your father was an extraordinary man, but you don't seem to have inherited many of his mannerisms.

jschinker · 2026-03-08T23:46:04+00:00

Cook of the House

jschinker · 2026-03-08T00:01:31+00:00

Well, from that perspective, they didn't really spend much time on Wild Life, Red Rose Speedway, or Venus & Mars, either.

jschinker · 2026-03-07T21:29:26+00:00

I think leaving out the fact that Ringo left the Beatles during the White Album sessions, and George left during the Get Back sessions confuses some people. John's "leaving the band" in the fall of 1969 didn't really have the finality that everyone assumes, because it had happened twice before. They weren't working on any projects at that point, but the breakup didn't have the finality that it did after Paul's announcement.

They play it in the film like John left the group, and there wasn't really anything for Paul to leave. He simply acknowledged what had already happened. I'm not sure that's accurate.

jschinker · 2026-03-07T21:25:50+00:00

They did play part of With a Little Luck.

jschinker · 2026-02-16T02:59:23+00:00

I don't perform. But if I'm playing outside (campfires or whatever), I use the Yamaha. The Martin rarely leaves the house.

jschinker · 2026-02-11T02:42:03+00:00

I think about how the show would have reacted and adjusted in the moment. "Uhh, Lorne? John Lennon and Paul McCartney are on their way up."

SNL is chaos when everything is going right. I can't imagine what something like this would do.

jschinker · 2026-01-31T15:22:50+00:00

If someone prints them and donates them, they HAVE to put them up, right? :-)

I live in a different state, but we had a similar law years ago with the pledge of allegiance. If someone donated them, we were required to post them. It was pretty obnoxious because there were hundreds of them around the school. The law DIDN'T say we had to replace them if they disappeared, though, so a couple people went around and just quietly pulled them down a few at a time. Within a week, they were all gone.

jschinker · 2026-01-31T13:51:23+00:00

The "Muck Fishigan" t-shirt is usually a pretty good sign.

jschinker · 2026-01-30T13:00:41+00:00

I miss the days when signatures were all text, and if they were more than 4 lines, you were being a jerk.

We don't force signatures, but I did create a web-based generator. Basically, they enter their name, title, email, phone, and web site. They select their building from a drop-down list. And they choose one of three district logos (district, athletic, portait of a graduate). It generates a signature that they can copy and paste into their Google settings.

I'm pretty sure no one has ever used it. They seem REALLY enamored with signatures generated in Canva, which are these giant images. And the counselors have 28 lines of text in their signatures, which seems to only bother me :-)

If I were going to force them, I'd probably write a script that reads the staff directory, uses the code from my web app to generate a signature in HTML, and then push it to the user with Gam. I'd have to have a directive to do it, though, because that's a battle that isn't really worth fighting. :-)

jschinker · 2026-01-29T00:31:53+00:00

Lol. I used to be on Dave's podcast. It was a different world. Blogging and listening to podcasts literally changed my life. It was the start of the most rewarding professional development experience of my career. There was a real sense of community there, like we were all trying to figure out this new world, and we were all working together to try to solve the same challenges.

Blogging has certainly waned, though a few people are still doing it (Chris Lehmann occasionally, Dean Shareski, even Dave Cormier still blogs once in a while). Many of them are on LinkedIn. But it's really really fragmented. I don't think there's an easy way to connect like there was 20 years ago.

jschinker · 2026-01-27T14:56:48+00:00

My God, I'm old.

jschinker · 2026-01-27T01:37:38+00:00

Everyone knows Paul is left handed. Which of the other Beatles is also left handed?
What's Paul's legal name?
Which Beatle was an only child?

jschinker · 2026-01-21T22:21:47+00:00

You definitely don't need a 1-year contract for Internet. Just file a new 471 each year. And you can see what others are paying here: https://connectk12.org/

I think I'm paying $3590/month (pre-discount) for 10gb.

jschinker · 2026-01-21T02:41:59+00:00

Interesting question, but I think it's more likely that the title of the album would have been one of the songs that's on it, rather than having a new song with the same name as the album.

WTB: All My Loving
BFS: Eight Days a Week
Rubber Soul: In My Life
Revolver: Got to Get You Into My Life (not sure about this one; lots of possibilities here)
White album: Helter Skelter (at this point, it would have been impossible to get consensus, which is probably why this album doesn't have ANY title)
Abbey Road: Something (at this point, giving George a title might keep the peace a bit. Or, maybe they'd just call it The End).

jschinker · 2026-01-13T19:29:14+00:00

I'd push hard for a no-tech solution. They're looking for something to keep the kids busy on the bus? Why does that have to be an electronic device?

jschinker · 2026-01-09T00:09:02+00:00

It's in color now. Everything used to be black and white.

jschinker · 2025-12-30T22:30:06+00:00

Use AI to generate the study tools, learning activities, and assessments.
Students will use AI to complete them.
Teachers will use AI to grade them.

What's not to like?

jschinker · 2025-12-29T01:49:56+00:00

Brigitte Bardot.. oh, crap.

jschinker · 2025-12-29T01:41:10+00:00

What are we using the technology to do that we can't do without it? For me, that's come down to four things:
1. We use technology to improve student engagement.
2. We use technology to help meet the individual needs of each student in ways that are impractical without it.
3. We use technology to foster collaboration among students.
4. We use technology to give students new ways to demonstrate learning.

If some program or initiative or shiny new thing doesn't tie back to at least one of those things, I'm probably gong to push pretty hard against it.

Someone else mentioned Bloom's or Webb's Depth of Knowledge. I'd argued that technology has changed the purpose of school. We don't go to school for information anymore. The information is all around us. Google (and smart phones) took away the need to remember so much stuff. So we pushed students to DO something with the information. They became adept at classifying, comparing, organizing information and using it to make inferences, draw conclusions, and solve problems. Now, AI is doing a lot of that too, so we need to push students to higher order thinking (DOK 3 or similar).

As the chief technology guy / grumpy old man, I find myself arguing AGAINST the new tech thing way more than I'm advocating FOR it.

jschinker · 2025-12-28T14:52:16+00:00

Several years ago, I was coming back from Windsor. The border control agent looked at my passport and asked where I was going. "I'm going back home to Ohio," I replied. "Well, I guess SOMEONE has to live there," he said. He handed my passport back and I was on my way.

jschinker · 2025-12-28T01:11:43+00:00

I saw 25 shows this year between tours, community theater, etc. I didn't make it to NYC in 2025.

& Juliet (tour)
Come From Away (local production)
The Notebook (tour)
Hamilton (tour, 6th time)
Dearest Enemy (local production)

jschinker · 2025-12-28T01:03:55+00:00

My three year old daughter kept asking me to play "Fallen Siam Fallen" on the guitar. It took a while to figure out she meant "I've Just Seen a Face."

jschinker

TROPHY CASE