Midyear Check-In: Gratitude and Goals 🌟

 

Volume 35

Wow! We’re officially halfway through the year. 🤯 Midway points like this before the back-to-school storm offer a perfect time for reflection. What’s working? What’s not? How well are you pacing towards your goals? Are you prepared for the 2024-2025 academic school year?

Although this line of thinking can be very practical and logistical, I personally like to weave in elements of gratitude and compassion as I reflect. This helps me not overly obsess about the things that didn’t get done or didn’t work and focus on the bigger picture. I mean, how truly lucky are we that we get to work in an industry as impactful as EdTech? Although it certainly has its challenges, I can’t think of another place I’d like to roll up my sleeves and do great work. Educators and students need our help more than ever.

Perhaps I’m more grateful than normal because of ISTE’s annual conference, which just concluded in Denver. This was my 14th ISTE, and seeing all of the educators and EdTech brands I’ve collaborated with over the years still gives me goosebumps. We get to collaborate and learn from some of the most inspiring and innovative people.

We felt so much support, kindness, and humor from so many folks in education at ​our 5th annual party at ISTE​. You all continue to fuel me to do even more in EdTech. This is true for educators as well. Many tell me that after spending time at ISTE with other innovative educators, they felt more recharged and ready to tackle another school year.

For those of you who didn’t attend ISTE, many EdTech trends that we saw at the start of the year continued to stay at the forefront. Although there continues to be a huge amount of attention centered around AI, I’ve noticed a welcomed shift. More and more people are asking critical questions about why and to what end AI is being used. Data privacy, standards alignment, and intentional integration into learning popped up more and more. AI sessions that just catered towards prompt engineering and what I call “shiny object syndrome tech” were met with educator critique. Emerging extended reality technology also seems to be here to stay, with more XR/VR companies exhibiting. It’s still early days, but I’m intrigued by the promise of the technology as more companies begin to provide curricula aligned to standards. Robots were also a common sight at ISTE, and the closing keynote highlighted a ballet dancer's passion for programming robotic dance partners.

Some of our team had the opportunity to visit the Molly Brown House Museum while in Denver, and I can’t think of a more inspiring person to end this letter with than Margaret Brown. She was known as a heroine of the Titanic and a philanthropist, and she famously said, “It makes no difference to me where I go. I am ready to go anywhere I am needed.” Thank you to all of you who continue to go where you are needed to help improve education.

I hope many of you continue to take a much-needed break for this holiday week, Elana

 
 
 

PS: Reply back to this newsletter to tell me about your ISTE experience. What trends popped out to you? What are you thinking about differently now?

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[Bonus] Did you know that the word "Robot" comes from the Czech word “robota,” or forced labor, as done by serfs. Its Slavic linguistic root, “rab,” means “slave.” 🤯