Tutor Trove just returned from the 2010 International Society for Technology in Education Conference (ISTE) in Denver.  It was an experience.  Some combination of the altitude and the 18,000 people in attendance left us a little breathless, but we’ve since recovered.

To begin with, the event was held in the Colorado Convention Center, one of the most cavernous buildings we’ve ever been inside.  The ground floor was entirely dedicated to workshops and speakers, but the main action was on the second floor exhibit hall.  Hundreds of vendors set up shop to hawk their wares to browsing customers. As was the case last year, Interactive Whiteboards dominated the show.  SMART, Promethean, Mimio, and numerous others all put on spectacular shows for the public.  They were interspersed with dozens upon dozens of software makers, who created everything from curriculum content to Learning Management Systems.

After adjusting to the scope of the conference, Tutor Trove felt right at home.  We presented our integrated document editor and Equation Generator with a partner of ours, Haiku LMS, as we successfully tried our software on every Interactive Whiteboard we could find.

One thing was clear from the conference:  technology has seeped into schools across the country and around the word.  As teachers compete with cell phones for students’ attention, Whiteboards and digital classrooms are becoming standard in the 21st century education.  We’ll see what next year’s conference in Philadelphia will bring.