A few weeks ago I returned from the 2019 ISDDE conference. The conference was in Pittsburg this year, a short (in mid-western terms) drive east. Thankfully, Tony was along for the ride with me! It was my first time to both Pittsburg and ISDDE and, I fell in love with both!
I was very honored to be inducted as a fellow this year along side many other amazing humans.
The conference is by no means a “sit and get” conference. We all came ready to discuss, to tackle challenges, and had the mindset to help others. At the beginning of the conference we self selected into strands – I was able to join the “Local Design Challenge” strand which was focused on work happening in the incredible new MuseumLab. Over the 3 days, we spent about 5 hours working through the challenge and presenting our ideas at the end of the conference.
ISDDE is a new community to me and I’m so thankful Tony and Cornelia introduced me to the network! It’s a uniquely specific group of educational designers, researchers, and innovators. I’m looking forward to engaging much more with the ISDDE community in the future.
As I mentioned, I also fell in love with Pittsburgh. I felt like it was a secret being kept from me! I stayed in the Squirrel Hill/Shadyside neighborhood and had about a 2 mile walk to the conference and I walked by Mr. Rogers’ WQED studio every morning. Pitt’s campus was amazing – the Cathedral of Learning is incredible and like nothing I’ve ever seen in all of my worldly travels! I look forward to returning to Pittsburgh to explore more.
Artifacts from the conference can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/isdde2019/program
And if you check out #ISDDE2019 you’ll see resources/ideas/links that were tweeted during the conference.