ISTE Ignite Sessions: Your Best Ideas in 20 Slides

Ever feel like a great idea comes to you, but it's six months past the conference proposal deadline? Or you're completely inspired by a new tool and you want to share it RIGHT NOW? Or maybe you just have a great ed tech story to share? Welcome to ISTE Ignite, where you have 5 minutes and 20 images to tell your story, share your tool, and inspire an audience of your peers!

Ignite is a fast-paced geek event started by Brady Forrest (Technology Evangelist for O'Reilly Media) and Bre Pettis (of Makerbot.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine). Speakers use 20 slides, rotated automatically and each shown for 15 seconds, giving each speaker 5 minutes of fame. The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006, and since then the event has become an international phenomenon, with gatherings in Helsinki, Paris, New York and many other locations. We're thrilled to be bringing the format to the ISTE conference in 2012!

ISTE 2012 will have two, one-hour ISTE Ignite sessions with 10 presenters for each session. The day/time for the two sessions are Monday, 8:30–9:30 am and Tuesday, 3:45–4:45 pm.

ISTE Ignite presenters will share what ignites their passions with the ISTE audience on the theme of "expanding horizons for learners"—this could be a professional practice from the classroom, excitement about a new tool that will spark creativity for their students, or a personal story of student engagement. The presentations are meant to ignite ISTE attendees by generating awareness and stimulating thought and action.

Submissions are now closed, but check back here at the end of the month to see who has been selected!

5 members like this

Comment by Dr. Kari Stubbs on March 22, 2012 at 11:44am: What a innovative idea! Love it! Can't wait to see what ISTE educators submit!

Comment by Carol Teitelman on March 22, 2012 at 12:06pm: Wow! Can't wait to see this in action.

Comment by Dr. Nellie Deutsch on March 22, 2012 at 12:37pm: Sounds like a lot of fun. Do the speakers get an all expense paid trip to the conference?

Comment by Jennifer Ragan-Fore on March 22, 2012 at 9:41pm: Nellie, I wish we could, but sadly no, speakers pay their own way. :)

Comment by Bonnie Marks on March 22, 2012 at 10:03pm: Nellie's question got me thinking ... since the presentations will be on a master computer -- might this be a case of "need not be present to win?" While most ignite presenters would likely want to take the stage, is it possible that we could accept a presentation from someone whose timed slides would be shown, even if they couldn't travel to the conference? Hmmm?

Comment by Jennifer Ragan-Fore on March 22, 2012 at 10:07pm: Interesting idea, Bonnie! The power of Ignite talks tend to be related to the quality of the storytellers, but your idea does get me thinking about whether there's a way for us to have a strand of remote ignite sessions for virtual ISTE.

Comment by Bonnie Marks on March 23, 2012 at 12:05am: I like the idea ... Remote Ignite!

Comment by Lisa Martin on April 13, 2012 at 5:23am: I LOVE the idea.....remote Ignite! If this is a ed tech conference, shouldn't there be an online component?

Comment by Mona Kansoh on April 27, 2012 at 12:21pm: Sounds good to me too especially if there will be more ignite sessions in more ISTE conferences. We can't attend them all, right?

Comment by Mona Kansoh on April 27, 2012 at 12:47pm: It seems there is a problem submitting the form. Any ideas?

Comment by Jennifer Ragan-Fore on May 1, 2012 at 9:29pm: I haven't heard that there are any problems with the form and everything seems fine, but try going directly to the google form in case the embed code is the issue for you: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dG50YUdUQXd1VD...

Let me know if that works!

Comment by Mona Kansoh on May 2, 2012 at 2:07am: Thanks Jennifer, I tried the Google link but still prompts me that I have one or two questions not answered although I filled out all the fields. Thanks for your reply anyways. I'll try to have it sent from the US!!

Comment by Fiona Grant on May 12, 2012 at 1:05pm: Great to see Ignite added to the ISTE programme. Have attended a couple of Ignite events here in New Zealand, it's a great format...fast, lots of variety and can really challenge thinking. I thought readers may be interested in what Ignite looks like in NZ, videos online here. Thanks to Mark Osborne @mosborne01

Comment by Jim S on May 22, 2012 at 11:07am: Have the locations of the sessions been determined yet?

Comment by Allen Burgad on June 20, 2012 at 6:23pm: Last year ISTE 2011 had an iPad app that was awesome. Is there an app for this year's conference?