And just like that—it’s here… Summer vacation and iPadpalooza—a three-day learning festival being held at the Westlake High School in Austin, Texas—and my first-ever trip to a national conference. Not only will I be spending the next four days with some of the most awesome edtech rockstars on the planet—Carl Hooker, Steve Dembo, Matt Miller, Reshan Richards, Tom Murray and Greg Kulowiec to name a few, but I also get the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of my most favorite PLN peeps that I’ve only known to date via Twitter and the blogosphere—Lisa Johnson (The Tech Chef) and Cathy Yenca (Mathy Cathy). Additionally, I will have the chance to reconnect with Tim Yenca, my district’s Apple Professional Learning Specialist, and the person who convinced me that I should not miss this opportunity as well. Thanks so much for encouraging me to be present at this event so I could expand my connections, skills and knowledge with the best of the best!

Not only am I attending various sessions on making, gamification, escape rooms, movie production and more, but I was also selected to be a presenter. On Tuesday, I’ll be hosting a Swift Talk entitled Project iLearn: Our Ed-venuture from No Tech to Anytime Tech in which I will discuss my District’s 1:1 iPad success story. And on Wednesday I was invited to be a panelist for the So, You Want to be an EdTech Integrator? session that will be facilitated by Felix Jacomino.

And the learning has already begun… I just finished my first session on sketchnoting in this amazing room called The Incubator, a classroom that was designed with the Shark Tank concept in mind. Students use this high-tech innovative space to develop a startup, with only one product selected to receive the funding needed to make the protype a reality. #waycool #makeitreal #kidsdeserveit

Sketchnoting… what in the world? Maybe this collaborative collage of words and doodles generated by all participants in the session will help explain, as it’s essentially a sketchnote.

Check out my first attempt at sketchnoting—one that involved charting the high and low points of my teaching career via a graph (specifically, one using the x and y axis). Great ideas to follow regarding how this concept can be integrated into the K-12 curriculum… #supercoolstuff

Stay tuned for more info from my ed-venture in the Lone Star State, which will include some app-solutely amazing ideas and resources that can be incorporated into your learning space!

In the meantime, check out more details about iPadpalooza by clicking here. Or join us virtually by following along on Twitter via these coordinates: @iPadpalooza or #iplza17.

I’m off to my next session—Using Digital Tools to Give Every Student a Voice in Math with the one and only Mathy Cathy!