InstCarn Recap: Day 1 - Reflections

mjennings
Community Contributor

Picture of the giant inflata

TL;DR

Instructure really out did themselves this year, but man those food lines in the conference center. 

Overall Impressions

I love Canvas and the wonderful community that is brought together each year at this conference. Seeing old friends (like  @kona ,  @scottdennis ,  @rseilham ,  @kenneth_rogers ,  @Renee_Carney  and even more than I can list) and meeting new ones like ( @BethCrook ‌, carroll-ccsd‌,  @victoria-maloy ‌). But I am getting head of myself. 

The opening Keynote by  @josh5 ‌ was fantastic as always. You can read my recap of that here - InstCarn Recap: Day 1 - PM Keynote 

Evening Activities

There was a lot of fun to be had at the Parade of Partners, but hopefully you were really hungry.  The lines for the food were insane and it was really hard to know exactly what you were in line for or if you were really in line at all.  Aside from that, the vendors were awesome as always and swag was plentiful. The award for the best stuff goes out to Knowbly with the carnival room filled with cotton candy, strong man challenge, air brush tattoos, plinko, soccer challenge and a (play money) cash grab.

Game Night

Game night is another highlight for me, although it is very different when you have your family there. My oldest son really wanted to play King of Tokyo so we grab it and got a quick intro by a helpful Canvas team member whose name I didn’t catch. While neither of my boys or I won, we still had a great time.  We also play a game of Blockus than my youngest wanted to play before calling it a night. 

Random Thoughts

Even with the chaos of the evening reception, this is still the greatest edtech conference in the world. Hands down. No question. No way to convince me otherwise.

Kudos to the Events Team that pulls this off each year.

*All of the content here is thoughts, opinions, musings and ramblings. It's like you just walked into my head.  Please excuse the mess.