OETC 2016

I had the opportunity to attend the Ohio Educational Technology Conference (OETC) last week, as I have done in years past. It is always great to gather with ed tech folks and seek out new inspirations and knowledge. Here are a few of my takeaways from this year's conference:

Keynotes - Two Thumbs Up

This year's keynotes were highlighted by Jaime Casap (Google for Education Evangelist) and Hadi Partovi (founder of Code.org). 

I've heard Jaime Casap present before and actually had the chance to meet him at ISTE in Philadelphia this past year. Jaime has a great story and I always feel his passion and energy during his talks. His keynote discussed the importance of iteration (not failure) which I am totally on board with. I love the idea that our students need to try new things and learn that it is OK to not be 100% successful on the first try - this is what builds character, knowledge, perseverance and a lot of other great qualities for students!

Doing my research paper on coding combined with our district partnering with Code.org, I have a base knowledge of Hadi Partovi and his organization. That said, his keynote was awesome - very inspiring and motivational! It was great to learn more about Code.org's background and mission and furthermore, it was great for teachers to hear this, including our Oak Hills teachers. We have had people interested in coding and providing these opportunities for our students, but after this keynote, that interest and passion was 10x. I'm hoping this sparks some change and new offerings for our students. Coding can open doors - I'm excited to see what doors are opened in Oak Hills as we progress with coding opportunities!

Teachers, where's the love?

So OETC touts this conference as being the largest ed tech P-20 conference in the country. While I don't know exactly how many people attended, I heard a few numbers thrown around, anywhere from 3-4,000 and maybe more. That said, I would think the majority of individuals attending are teachers. Sure, there are others but as for the largest group in attendance, I would guess it's teachers and because of that, there should be many breakout sessions by teachers, for teachers, right? That would make sense to me and from talking with our teachers that went, that's what they would have liked. Unfortunately, I found this was not the case. See below

Day	Time	K-12	Higher Ed	ESC/ITC/ODE/ Educational Consultant	Vendor/Other
Wednesday	8:00-8:45am	7	2	7	7
	11:00-11:45am	8	2	4	12
	1:15-2:00pm	5	0	6	14
	3:45-4:30pm	3	3	9	8
Thursday	8:00-8:45am	5	1	7	9
	11:00-11:45am	5	2	6	15
	1:15-2:00pm	3	4	7	13
	2:30-3:15pm	5	9	5	5
Totals		41	23	51	83
		20.71%	11.62%	25.76%	41.92%

The week prior to the conference, while I was going through sessions and planning my conference route, I got the sense that this year's conference had much more vendor influence and I had trouble finding sessions during each time frame that I felt would be helpful and relevant to what we are doing at Oak Hills. I went through and categorized each breakout session of the conference to see if my thoughts were correct. Bingo.

This was also the feedback we got from our teachers that the for teachers, by teachers component was missing. I hope that OETC reconsiders this when selecting sessions for next year!

Oak Hills, where is the love?

Each year, Oak Hills typically has a good showing with multiple sessions being presented over various ideas and accomplishments. I personally have been on a presentation team each of the last 3 years so when our proposal was denied this year*, I was a little taken back. Then when it was all said and done and Oak Hills had only 2 of 10 proposals accepted, I was shocked. I feel as though I have realistic expectations and don't expect to have every proposal submitted accepted, but in a district this awesome that has a lot of good people doing great things, I'd expect a better than 20% acceptance rate. Furthermore, this would have not been as much of an issue, had there been more and higher quality for teacher by teacher sessions.


*Our proposal that got denied was about our Highlander Tech Expo, an internal ed tech conference put on for teachers, by teachers - I can somewhat understand why OETC wouldn't want this type of proposal seeing as districts may learn they have great teachers doing great things and can provide a scaled down, less vendor-y experience in their own district (minus high profile keynotes, wide variety of participants, etc.)

Conclusion

While a great team building experience and opportunity to learn some new things, I am hoping feedback is provided to OETC for a better experience for next year's conference. Our plan as of now is to not send nearly as many teachers next year simply because the conference didn't appear to be targeted to them. We have a big focus on professional learning for our staff and have to ensure that every opportunity provides our staff the best chance for growth and development. The keynotes were appreciated and may have saved the conference for me and many in my group.