OneNote(book) to Rule Them All

by Jamie Kasper, AEC Associate Director

ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, is an international organization that supports educators in making decisions about curriculum, instruction, professional learning, and technology. In its 2015 Annual Report (latest data available), the organization reported having 17,470 members in 92 countries.

One of the most well-known ISTE-sponsored activities is the annual summer conference, which draws about 15,000 people annually. I’ve been attending the conference yearly since 2009, when it was still known as the National Education Computing Conference (NECC). I remember walking into the conference site in Washington, D.C. and being completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of educators in one space. As the conference got underway, I was again overwhelmed by the innovative ideas and technology on display. My brain was full after about two hours at the conference, and it took a while to decompress when I returned home.

Fast forward to 2017, and I’ll be attending my ninth consecutive ISTE conference in San Antonio, TX in June. Over the years, I’ve learned to pace myself so I don’t get so overwhelmed and to do a lot of early morning walking around the host city to allow my brain to process what I’ve learned. My Fitbit usually has at least 25,000 steps on it by the end of each day at ISTE!

This year, I’ll be accompanied by Lisa Thoft and Rob Naser, teachers at Keystone Oaks School District. Lisa and Rob are currently participants in AEC’s Leadership Academy, and they’ve also been key contributors to Keystone Oaks’ art and music curriculum writing process. As part of their work with AEC, they’ve started to use Microsoft OneNote both with their students and as a planning tool internally. We’ll be presenting a poster session on their work with OneNote.

Both Lisa and Rob are excited to attend their first conference. Rob said, “I am excited for the opportunity to share the ways that our district has been able to collaborate with the AEC in curriculum writing through the use of OneNote. I am also thrilled to be able to network with extraordinary teachers and professionals who are using educational technology in the classroom to meet the needs of 21st century learners.”

I expect augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to be the emerging technology focus at this year’s conference. I’ll be looking for examples of how these technologies are used in arts classrooms so that we can use this information to inform AEC’s work in the 2017-2018 school year.