Continuing in the pattern of steady growth that has characterized the ICE Conferences that have been held at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles in recent years, ICE Conference 2009 was the biggest event that ICE has ever hosted. We had over 1,800 attendees on Thursday alone and over 3,000 unique registrations for the entire conference. These are both new high water marks for our annual event. Many thanks are due to the large group of conference committee members, tech staff members, and ICE volunteers who worked hard to make sure that everything ran smoothly over the four days of workshops, breakout sessions, and special activities.
There were several new venues that were set up this year to offer additional information for attendees and to provide new opportunities to learn about emerging technologies. The ICE booth pictured above was expanded significantly and was filled with visitors throughout the conference. A new Thursday keynote luncheon event was held for the first time, and David Thornburg spoke to a sold-out audience at the Advanced Center for Training facility. The poster sessions, Assistive Technology Playground and Second Life Playground were all housed in the Marsalis Rooms near the Atrium this year, and the presenters were busy through all of the scheduled sessions on Thursday and Friday. Another new venue was the Personal Learning Network (PLN) Plaza near Preservation Hall, and it was also busy throughout the conference.
As noted above, special thanks go out to the dozens of committee members and volunteers who have met regularly since April, 2008, to plan and organize all of the procedures and activities that are essential for a successful conference. Each morning during the conference, an army of tech specialists wearing red shirts met to discuss the computer installations and network configurations that would be required to support the presentations and demonstrations for that day. In other locations around the conference center, dozens of ICE volunteers were helping attendees to get their materials and find the locations for the presentations they hoped to see.
ICE Conference 2009 is still fresh in our memories, yet the planning for the 2010 event will begin in just a few weeks. If you enjoyed the conference, please consider volunteering to help with next year's conference - "ICE Conference 2010: A Learning Odyssey." It promises to be bigger and better than ever!
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