I was curious, so I spent a little time searching through the MACUL Program this morning. I found that iPad was mentioned over 120 times in the program and was specifically mentioned in the titles or descriptions of 45 workshops or talks. By contrast Android was mentioned 10 times in 3 talks or workshops. I also searched for Chrome to find stuff on Chromebooks. The only mentions of the word Chrome were in printer descriptions, i.e. monochrome, in the vendor section of the program.
To put things in perspective, Web 2.0 got 113 mentions this year, Social was listed 49 times, Cloud 36 times, Interactive Whiteboards 19 times, Inquiry 9 times, Pedagogy 4 times, and Construct once. I’m not sure exactly what this says about us, so I created a Wordle out of the Session titles and descriptions so I might have a better look at the focus of the conference.
Looking at this I feel a little better. Students are mentioned a lot as are Educators. Also fairly important are create and community.
It’s interesting to see how the hot tools come and go from year to year. For example, RSS was pretty big and important a few years ago, now it’s only mentioned in the SIGOL description. No matter what tools you decide to learn about this year at MACUL, try not to forget the pedagogy. Remember to spend some time thinking about how the new and exciting tools you learn about can be used to enhance learning. Will they lead to change or are they just shiny new ways of doing the same thing you used to do? Tools come and go, changes to your teaching can last a lifetime.
Personally I often learn more about how a tool can change my practice between sessions when I share what I’ve been learning with colleagues or even random strangers. Don’t miss out on the chance to learn from the committed educators who come to this conference every year.
On a side note, you might see if you can find a session or two on iPads. I hear they’re all the rage in edtech right now 
