Tuesday, April 10, 2018

"Hack (Your) Education" - 12th Annual Unconference at ISTE on June 23rd in Chicago


We're pleased to (finally!) announce the 2018 Hack Education unconference day, Saturday, June 23rd, at ISTE in Chicago. Sorry for the delay--there have been some changes on the ISTE side around security and badging, and we were finalizing arrangements with Participate (our exclusive sponsor again this year--wahoo!).

So, here's the deal. Hack Education is still a great event for beginners and regular attenders alike. It's still an amazing community experience filled with interesting conversations in a highly social environment. It's still free (well, sort of, see below)--thanks to the amazing generosity of ISTE and Participate. It is still the event to attend at ISTE because of all the connecting and sharing. It's still an "unconference," and is still organized by the participants in real time on-site. There are still no formal presentations, just "conversations" that you or others facilitate. And it's still a blast.

BUT... because ISTE has had to increase their security around entering the convention center, everyone attending will need to have an official ISTE2018 badge. There is no additional cost to attend Hack Education, but the badge requirement means that you will actually have to be registered for ISTE (which, of course, is not free). In the past it has always been fun to be able to open the doors of Hack Education even to those who might not be able to afford to go to the actual ISTE conference, but we understand this requirement and appreciate that ISTE is still allowing us to hold our event as "non-premium" so that there is no extra charge to be there.

So, to sign up for Hack Education, you need to do so as part of the main ISTE registration, and you'll get a ticket for the event on your badge, which you'll have to present at the door. This actually went live on the ISTE registration site before we were able to map out all the details, and as of last week there were already 173 people signed up (we can take 350 before we have to go to a wait-list). So don't delay?

The first ever Hack Education unconference (called EduBloggerCon) at ISTE (then NECC), in 2007 in Atlanta. Whom do you recognize?

One bit of fun this year is that we are going to play with the "Hack Education" name. You can see in the above logo that we've nicknamed this year's event "Hack (Your) Education," with an emphasis on the creative ways that you (as teachers and administrators and students) create your own learning solutions. I'm looking forward to what I know will be some great conversation sessions on this idea, and Participate is excited to explore as well how they can support you in hacking your education (and may even be bringing some cool swag for attendees...)!

Our Saturday night after-party will be part of a bigger Participate social event, so stay tuned for more information on that. Coordinating and information emails will go out in the coming weeks through the ISTE system to those who are signed up for Hack Education. We'll also post updates on ISTEunplugged.com. For those who are tracking the sister-event Lucy Gray and I hold on Sunday afternoon, Global Education Day, its registration is being managed in the same way as part of the general ISTE registration process (it's just as full and only has 250 spots, so jump on that quickly, too!).

One final word... There's a new, upstart, scooter man in ISTE-town. I hope he doesn't think that by using one of those fancy, electric, no-effort, silicon-valley-friendly scooters he's somehow going to avoid the annual scooter showdown. With Peggy George no longer able to travel to ISTE, she'll have to call the race remotely. Richard, check with Kecia so you know the competitive level to prepare for, then name the time and place...





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