The week of April 16-18th, 2018 roughly 4,000 people ascended on the beautiful city of San Diego, CA to attend the 9th ASU+GSV Summit. The event proved to be a wonderful experience to share information, listen to engaging presentations, and make new meaningful connections.

As the Director of Technology Initiatives for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College I went to the summit with the goal of showcasing our development of the new IgnitED Labs that are designed as open, hands-on, learner-centered creative spaces where users can explore and play with new and emerging technologies that can serve a role in teaching and learning. The IgnitED Labs were designed to go beyond the scope of traditional computer labs and provide students opportunities to create knowledge, and skill sets through emerging technologies. These innovative spaces allow for users to create and tweak, tinker and play, and ultimately improve the learner experience through their discoveries.

To help showcase the variety (sample) of equipment that will be used in the new lab spaces I packed a high powered gaming laptop and an Oculus Rift into a Pelican travel case and threw in a Shpero SPRK+ and a Raspberry Pi touchscreen as well. The IgnitED Labs project was graciously allowed to join the folks from ASU Ed Plus in their booth.  The booth was well positioned in the summit floor and had a high amount of visibility and traffic.

Overall it was great experience and opportunity for us to share the innovative work taking place in our office / college / university in a truly connected and global event.