7 Things to See and Do with Microsoft at ISTE 2010
Experiential learning, that is what we are aiming for at this year’s ISTE conference in Denver next week!
One of my responsibilities here at Microsoft as the person who leads our educator outreach and programs in the US is to manage Microsoft’s participation at ISTE 2010. This has kept me busy over the last couple of months, so I am excited that the event is almost here. This is our biggest education event of the year in the US and we are planning a wide-range of activities for educators throughout the event. We hope you are planning to attend, as it will be fun to put faces to names and Twitter handles!
So here are 7 things to see and do with Microsoft at ISTE 2010. We hope that you leave the conference inspired to engage with your students and colleagues finding or learning a new way to effectively integrate technology in a relevant way in your school.
7. Join us for a free learning session at the Hyatt Regency. We will host daily breakfast and lunch sessions featuring the new Office 2010, demos of our Free Tools for Teachers and sessions on Live@edu, which is our no cost collaborative tools for your school or district, as well as multiple tracks for STEM educators around Kodu, XNA Game Studio and Expressions Web. No registration is required and sessions are first come, first serve. The Hyatt Regency is just across the street from the convention center. The complete schedule is here: www.microsoft.com/education/ISTE/
6. Stop by our booth (#1354) for a hands-on learning class. Daily we will feature a rotating set of 30 minute mini-classes for educators ranging from digital storytelling to encouraging online collaboration to differentiating instruction with technology. Many of these sessions will feature the new Office 2010 suite, Office Web Apps and Windows 7. The complete schedule is here: www.microsoft.com/education/ISTE/
5. Try Office 2010! A critical tool for teachers and students everywhere. This is the latest release (made publicly available early this month) of our popular Office suite and with this release we’ve also released Office Web Apps, the online companion to the Office products available at no-cost, just log-in with your Windows Live ID to https://office.live.com and access, create, edit and share your Office documents anywhere you have a web browser. Stop by the booth (#1354) and see a demo of Office 2010, Web Apps and the new OneNote 2010.
4. Stop by the Happy Hour Tweet-Up at 16 Mix. We will be co-hosting a Tweet-Up with our friends from Dell (@edu4u), including @alfredtwo, myself (@TeachTec), and others to put faces to the handles! Register here to help us plan, or just stop by 16Mix (at the Sheraton, walking distance from the convention center).
3. Experience the new WorldWide Telescope Planetarium – right in the booth! If you have yet to experience the galaxy through Microsoft’s WorldWide virtual telescope you must. The imagery is amazing and the educational opportunities to engage students are immense. So now take the WorldWide Telescope, mix it with a fancy LCD projection device and add a big puffy dome and now you have a mini planetarium right in our booth! You will need to see it to believe it! Stop by and grab a ticket for true experiential learning. But if you just can’t wait, let Benjamin take you on a guided tour of the Ring Nebula, he is 6 years-old.
2. More evening fun, join our Celebrating Educator Excellence reception. On Tuesday night at the Hyatt Regenct (6-7:30pm) we will co-host with HP a fun evening of food, drinks and live music to celebrate you. If you can register a head of time, that would be helpful, but stop by if you can. And be ready for a fun surprise visitor – bring your camera!
1. Pick-up the new (and free) Learning Suite DVD! Just released in time for ISTE 2010, Microsoft is excited to make available a new DVD that provides a convenient one-stop-shop for all of the Microsoft free tools we make available to educators across our web sites. This DVD puts them all in one place, saving you from going to multiple web sites and we’ve included teacher resources, lesson plans and teacher professional development resources. Ask for one at the Microsoft booth (#1354).
The one place to look for all of the Microsoft activities at ISTE is www.microsoft.com/education/ISTE/ – print this, or stop by our booth and grab our conference schedule that will provide all activities in detail so you make your conference plan. I am excited to be on the road to Denver, and plan to arrive in time for the EduBloggerCon 2010 – hope to see you there!
Regards,
Rob
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