Looking Back at ISTE 2019 in Philly

The largest EdTech event of the year is behind us, and we’re still feeling blissful and thankful for all the connections we’ve made and educators we spoke to. Here’s a short recap of what was going on on the show floor, as well as some useful advice for bringing students and the school staff into the 21st-century digital environment with Blocksi.

Connecting with people on the show floor

After setting up our beautiful, shiny booth, we eagerly anticipated the opening of the main expo hall, where thousands of teachers, superintendents, and tech directors would flood the venue seeking out the latest and most useful tools in educational technology.

Our bright booth was quite noticeable from afar so we got a lot of opportunities to chat up with people and show them what we have in store- powerful filtering, monitoring, and managing of Chromebooks anywhere- school or home.

Those who came by our booth found themselves interested in the fact that Blocksi covers every role in the school district and caters to the functionalities the students and staff most require in their day-to-day work. These are Principals who track the school’s progress and the overall well-being of the students. Teachers who monitor every student’s Chromebook in-class, Admins, that manage all the devices and policies, and last but not least: Parents- they are the ones who apply policies on the Chromebook when their child brings it home (especially useful in 1:1 districts, where the device goes off-campus).

Classroom Management and Student Safety

Two of the most prominent features that stood out to visitors were our Lost and Stolen Device Tracking which already talked about, and the Student Safety features. The first one enables easier recovery of a missing Chromebook by gathering their location, webcam images, page screenshots, and logins. Meanwhile, the Student safety feature is focused on detecting harmful behavior among students by detecting cyberbullying, violence, self-harm, drug abuse, and others within their Gmail, Gdrive, and Gdocs files.

Besides meeting wonderful people, we also got to see beautiful Philadelphia, had the famous Philly cheesesteak, and we also got this dope-looking paperweight(?) that you see above for being a Google Technology partner.

All in all, the show was a great success, and we can’t wait to see you next year in California!