one of the highlights of every school year for me is the annual NEIT conference. the years i’ve had to miss it, i’ve felt as though i’ve missed out on a great source of camaraderie, inspiration, and good old-fashioned learning. (or maybe that’s new-fashioned.) 

in addition to the unconference-style format that lets everyone in attendance propose sessions and participate in a choose-your-own-adventure-like grid of workshops, i got the chance to take part in the first NEIT Ignite sessions. it was a great thrill getting up and doing something new in front of a crowd of people i both respect and admire greatly. it was the most nervous i’d been in a long time, but i drew inspiration from my fellow ignite presenters — Al Doyle presented Game Design 2010, Christopher York on The Spence iPad Project, Laura Hollis gave a presentation called iStruggle, and Reshan Richards on iPad Apps. i was closing out the set, and each of the amazing talks before mine made me simultaneously more nervous and more emboldened to do, well, this: 

it was great fun, and i’d do it again in a heartbeat. the ignite structure — 20 slides, 5 minutes, with an auto-advancing slidedeck — is such a great way to refocus presenters on their message and accompanying visuals, and i definitely want to see how my students might be able to adapt the presentations they give to this exciting format.