Why I’m Still Showing Up for ISTE 2026 — Even From Behind a Screen

I won’t be on the ground in person for ISTE 2026. Schedule didn’t allow it this year. But I’ll be covering it anyway, because I’ve sat in enough of these conversations over the years in hallways between sessions, on this podcast, in district PD rooms to know what actually gets said at ISTE versus what ends up in the recap.

So here’s what I’ve learned from those conversations, and why I still think every educator reading this should be there, even if it’s just watching the feed like me.

Classroom conversations are where the real PD happens.

I’ve talked to enough teachers on this show to know the best ideas almost never come from a keynote stage. They come from a teacher in year four telling you what actually worked on a Tuesday when half her kids were absent and the wifi went down anyway. ISTE works because it puts those people in the same room and lets them talk shop. That’s not networking that’s frontline R&D, and it’s the reason I keep sending teachers there even when budgets are tight.

Leadership conversations only matter if leaders are willing to be wrong.

Every leader I’ve interviewed who’s actually moved a campus forward told me some version of the same thing: vision matters less than your willingness to take a real risk and own it when it doesn’t land. ISTE attracts the leaders who show up not to defend a strategic plan but to find out what they got wrong. If you’re a principal or district leader and you’re only going to confirm what you already believe, skip it. If you’re going to let a teacher in a hallway change your mind, go.

Technology conversations should start with a kid, not a tool.

I’ve sat through a lot of vendor pitches in ten years across five Texas districts, and I can tell you the ones that stuck weren’t the flashiest. They were the ones built around an actual problem a teacher described to me first. The best EdTech conversations I’ve had on this podcast and off it, always start with “here’s what my kids needed” and only then get to the tool. ISTE is one of the only places where you can have that conversation with the person who built the thing, instead of the salesperson selling it.

Every story is a plus — that’s not a tagline, that’s how I run this show.

108-plus episodes in, the thing I trust most isn’t policy briefs or research papers. It’s a teacher or principal telling me, plainly, what happened in their building. That’s the same energy ISTE runs on. You don’t go to collect swag. You go to trade stories with people who are in it, and you leave with three things you’re actually going to try on Monday.

So go… even if, like me this year, you can only watch it happen.

I’ll be tuned in virtually, pulling the conversations worth sharing back to you through the podcast. But if you have the chance to be there in person, take it. The classroom, leadership, and tech conversations happening at ISTE 2026 are the same ones I’ve been having with educators for years, they’re just better in a room full of people who get it.

Collaborate, communicate, and educate with the best educators in the world. That’s not just our tagline. It’s what ISTE actually is.