Edtech Conference Recommendation

During the past year Cindy and I have attended 5 tech conferences – ISTE, TIES (Minnesota), FETC (Florida), TCEA (Texas), and a smaller conference at Thief River Falls, MN. We did this out of personal interest and paid all expenses ourselves. We are recently retired, continue to write in the ed tech field, and enjoy both the travel and the conference experience. ISTE and FETC have been regular visits for years, but the other conferences were more related to our recent freedom from other responsibilities.

For some time, I have been meaning to write a post identifying my favorite even and explaining why. The Thief River Falls conference would not be an option for most folks because it is smaller and does not offer the vendor hall typical of larger conferences. For the record, the quality of presentations at this conference was superb and I would recommend participation for anyone in the North Dakota or Minnesota area.

If I would have to limit my focus on one conference, it would be FETC. It offers a large vendor space which I find valuable to explore new services and devices. When you think about cost and efficiency, you can read and view presentations on nearly any topic. Because of the Internet the conference presentations are less important than was the case a decade ago. Keynotes are less interesting to me than to Cindy. The cost/benefit trade-off invested in “motivational” speakers does not strike me as important. In general, the paid speakers offer me little of interest. Recognize that these are not research conferences and I tend to be most interested in deep analysis of educational practices. I never pay for pre-conference instructionals because in the situations when I lack background, I can learn far more efficiently and less expensively what these sessions offer through other sources. The “one and done” professional development workshop so many educators complain about works no better when hosted by a conference. I am mostly interested in trends and classroom examples (in depth, not mentions).

Picking FETC over ISTE may surprise some. The FETC venue is magnificent and there may be some benefit to having the conference in the same location year after year. I find ISTE to be inefficient and growing worse. The number of participants overwhelm the capacity of the conference – many sessions fill meaning one almost has to plan to attend a session every other time period to find a seat. The lines are too long. I see no meaningful difference in the quality of the sessions. I have no solution for the experience, but I find I get more out of FETC.