The ISTE Experience

The International Society for Technology in Education, more popularly known as ISTE, held their annual conference in Chicago, Illinois this past summer. This conference is known to be the epicenter of everything edtech, and included powerful ideas, inspirational speakers, and networking events to connect with fellow innovative educators who share a passion for transformative learning. ​

One Distinctive Schools teacher, Matthew (Matt) Freiburger from Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Prairie, managed by Distinctive Schools, had the opportunity to attend the ISTE conference during his summer break. Matt shared his experience below:

What I Did This Summer:
​One Distinctive Schools Teacher ISTE Experience

Guest Post by Matthew Freiburger

​From robots to 3D printers to maker spaces, as a teacher I hear a lot of trendy tech integration being pushed these days. The innovations that exist in education through the deeper integration of technology is truly exciting but I find myself needing to sift through and find what I can integrate into the classroom.

At ISTE the first trend I noticed was a larger focus on STEAM for early learners. The expo featured many coding products that incited problem solving at early ages. My favorite of these products was a “bee-bot” it allows for children to program the robot by pressing a series of buttons and then pressing play. With it’s easy set up of just the robot and a pictorial grid it’s an easy activity to integrate into any kinder or first grade classroom. If you’re like me and concerned about having a cost effective way to do the same type of thing, consider making your own pictorial grid, and having students “program” each other to certain spaces. This will help them later apply the skill to programs like code.org.​

The integration of virtual reality goggles into classroom settings is another trend that is on the rise. Virtual reality goggles can be used for virtual field trips and experiential learning opportunities, but the idea of every child in the classroom having access to them seems like a bit of a far fetched idea. Again, if you’re like me and want to expose kids to virtual field trips and virtual learning consider this idea, create a National Geographic account, or simply go on YouTube and look up “National Geographic 360 videos” then turn off the lights in the room and create a rectangular prism that can be placed on the outside of the screen. This will give children the experience of virtual reality through 360 videos while experiencing it on their own terms as they cut off the world around them for a while.​

Lastly, in my time at ISTE my absolute favorite sessions to attend were “Google Education” sessions. They taught us selfishly how to access free programming that allows students to experience the entire world around them as well as become change agents in their communities. For teachers they offered ways to take data, store data and (boost) the curriculum we teach while still appeasing the common core state standards. The following are some of the programs google offers, and their functions:

1. Google translate: have conversations translated real time in conferences with microphone feature.
2. Google poly: create 360 tours pick locations, service learning projects.
3. Google expeditions: create classroom expeditions as a class
4. Google experiment: play guess who for science/ literacy/ history

The integration of technology in the classroom is amazing for our students, when the practice is done with cross disciplinary instruction in mind every student we come into contact with has the ability to broaden the way they learn, and make connections with the world and their own communities.

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Matt was able to attend the ISTE conference through the Wired to Learn grant award from Relativity Gives. To learn more about the award, read our post CICS Prairie: Wired to Learn.