This year, due to family and other issues, I had to turn down the generous offer from my school system and not go to #ISTE2015 on the bus.  From Twitter alone, I know that my peeps (#fcsvanguard) are having a great time.  What they may not be aware of, is how great a time I can have attending the conference remotely.

Through the weekend and into today, I have had commitments away from my computer, but thanks to Jennifer Wagner & Craig Yen I’m hooked into the conference via #NOTATISTE15.  She created a Google community and today I attended my first Google Hangout.  Yeah!

The trick with a community is it makes connections in ways you may never have experienced.  So, in short, today I learned:

• How to be on a Google Hangout and some of its features
• Tech Tools for the Flipped Classroom – I arrogantly thought I knew this but I was wrong.  This has tools I had never tried, but will now.  And I can already see how to share with my teachers.  That’s worth the price of admission.
• #NOTATISTE15 Live Binders – I have never used a LiveBinder made by an expert before.  I have so much to learn about using tools.  Much less the incredible amount of information they are collecting and sharing with me.  It’s mind-blowing!
• Tweetdeck can use a Boolean “OR” statement to put more than one hashtag in the column.  (To be fair, I learned this Saturday.)  Just edit the column and put the word OR (capitals with no punctuation) and then the second hashtag.  It works when you’re not sure to follow #NOTATISTE15 OR #NOTATISTE.

I remind everyone to remember to sip from the firehose, not stand in front of it and get knocked down.  There’s more information than I can absorb OR use during the next school year in just a few hours at #ISTE2015.  Learn something, then go back for more. I promise that the information stream will continue, unabated, at full power.  It will be there when you get back.