This year’s Statewide IT conference was great, even though I was still not-quite-recovered from the SIGUCCS conference (which was the week before Statewide) — I still threw all my energy and excitement into IU’s yearly IT conference, as I always do. This year was especially busy for me, as not only did I present a poster at the Tech Expo, but I also presented a breakout session on creating accessible screencasts!
With the Tech Expo running alongside breakfast on the first day of Statewide, I had a busy first day of the conference right off the bat. Some of you might recognize the poster I presented…
I thought that the folks here at IU might be interested to see what IT Training’s been up to over the past year – and while not too many people stopped to talk much about the poster (I’m thinking holding the Tech Expo during the breakfast hour made people rush through things a little more), those that did were glad to hear we’re trying new things and exploring new frontiers of technology training.
Speaking of exploring new frontiers, one of the keynotes was delivered by Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to go into space! (And the first real-life astronaut to play a Starfleet officer, too.)
Dr. Jemison’s speech was incredibly inspirational, and really got me thinking about our world today and where it’s heading. I’m very glad that IU was able to have her come talk at Statewide, and I’m especially glad that we were able to have so many middle schoolers come attend her talk as well — Dr. Jemison is an inspiration to us all.
After the keynotes, the first round of breakout sessions happened, which included the presentation I did with Greg Hanek from the User Experience Office (formerly of IT Training) on Creating Accessible Screencasts. It was great to get to present with Greg again!
This was my first time presenting at Statewide. While I’m no stranger to presenting, it was definitely a little different presenting at a conference in front of work friends — I had to catch myself from going into my usual workshop introduction, haha. The presentation went really well, though, and we had lots of good questions and discussion. (For those who are curious about what was covered, you can take a look at the presentation here on Box. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, the presentation summarizes a lot of what we talked about.)
The rest of the conference was great — I went to a couple of other breakout sessions, including one on the new UITS Diversity and Inclusion initiative (which I’d very much like to get involved in) and a speed networking event hosted by IU Women in Technology. All in all, I’d say the conference was good, but it managed to get even better…
… as IT Training won the IT Leadership Team Collaboration Award! I hadn’t expected it at all (and really wish I’d worn something nicer to the conference that day, haha, but I was so exhausted!), and it was so great to see our hard work recognized. We’ve done a lot over the past year, including moving our certificate series courses online, raising awareness of the Think Before You Click initiative and the updated phishing.iu.edu website, teaching our award-winning content to academic classes at IU, and developing new courses on technology topics such as video development and programming. We’ve been a busy group, and it’s so great to have that recognized!
So, that wraps up the highlights of the 2018 Statewide IT Conference! Between this and SIGUCCS, I’ve got lots of ideas for things to talk about at next year’s conferences!