Pre-OLC Innovate Checklist

I am so excited to be presenting at OLC’s Innovate 2016 conference. My colleague Alex Boyce and I will be pitching CaptureStudio as part of the Solution Design Summit challenge in New Orleans next week, and hopefully we’ll be able to spread the word about ELMS LN while we’re there too! OLC Innovate will be the largest conference I’ll have presented at, and while that makes me nervous, I’m also really grateful for the opportunity to go and spread the word about our pedagogy-first approach to technology integration. In the meantime, I really need to get my presentation slides posted!

In addition to presenting, I can’t wait to participate in sessions and make new connections – OLC is a prominent organization in the educational technology field, and plenty of folks who attend are likely to share my views and interests. I’m all stocked up on business cards to exchange with folks! There is an enormous selection of sessions to go to, ranging from data analytics (a personal favorite topic of mine) to best practices in online education, faculty focused presentations, and hands-on sessions too. I say this about every conference I go to, but I always feel like there’s never enough time to hit everything you want to see when the selection is this huge. At the same time, it’s really encouraging that there are so many worthwhile topics and initiatives going on around the country that folks in the field are willing to share with the rest of us. It’s truly an exciting time to be in the educational technology world!

On top of what you’d expect from a conference, Innovate 2016 has some really awesome networking events going on, like the Photo Safari. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there will be some unique ideas in play at a conference with “innovate” in its title! They’re also promoting #OLCDiningBuddies, which I can’t wait to join in on. I’ve never been to New Orleans, but everyone has told me that the food is amazing, so I plan to sample as much of the local fare as I can and I’d love to make new friends in the ed tech world in the process!

Are you headed to OLC Innovate next week? Leave me a comment or drop me an email – I’d be glad to meet up! I love to eat, so I can never have too many dining buddies.