5 Takeaways from my #NotAtISTE14 Experience

This year, I wasn't able to make it to the ISTE 2014 Conference. I just had too many other engagements. But, I was excited to see a growing movement and community of others in the same situation as me! My friend and co-host of EdTech Mixed Plate, +Michelle Carlson Colte, sent a tweet my way with the hashtag, #notatiste14. I dug a little deeper into this hashtag, and found a thriving community! Here are my 5 takeaways from my #NotAtISTE14 experience:

• NOTATISTE14 Google+ Community - This community was created by +Jennifer Wagner and currently has 309 members. It includes so many great posts of resources gathered from ISTE, blog posts, and sharing of notes taken during sessions and keynotes.

• #NotAtISTE14 Participant Google Presentation -  In order for the community members to get to know each other, a Google Presentation was created and participants were invited to create their own slide. There are now more than 150 slides! This was a great opportunity to meet and connect with new people, as we shared are interests and our social network connections.

• Badges & Ribbons - The most fun part of participating in #NotAtISTE14 was being able to create our own digital badges and collecting digital ribbons! I'm still sorting through all the real ribbons I collected at ISTE 2013, so I was having a blast adding digital ribbons to my badge this time around. This was another fun activity that we could all participate in even though we couldn't attend the conference. It also allowed us another avenue for getting to know each other. Thanks to +Vicky Sedgwick for creating everything! (Click the link to download your own badge and ribbons!)

• 81dash - This new service, created by +Carlos Fernandez, is a communication platform designed for teachers to use with students. Its a back channel chat tool with added features! Teachers can lock the chat room to a specific set of students, and students can insert files into the chat, take notes, and create tasks, as they work together. This looks to be a very promising tool for classrooms! +Jerry Swiatek created a great tutorial video for 81dash!

• Follow the Hashtags! - Even if you did or did not attend ISTE this year, the hashtags are always a great way to follow along with the action and the learning and to continue to learn long after the conference is over! Use a service like Tagboard.com to follow the hashtags across multiple social networks. #ISTE2014 and #NotAtISTE14

How was your ISTE 2014 experience? What have you learned these past few days? Share in the comments or on Google+!