Ira Apfel sat down with Sarah McKibben.
Editor-in-Chief of EdSurge, no less.
They were wrapping up ISTELive 24 in Orlando. The week was over, the keynotes had fizzled out, the convention floor actually quieted down for a change. Most of the hype was gone. So they talked about what actually stuck.
There’s a new idea floating around now. Relational intelligence. Sounds academic but it landed harder than most buzzwords do. Then there’s the phrase about AI slop. Educators heard it. It annoyed them. It resonated.
This conversation barely scratches the surface of the ground game the EdSurge team played. There are plenty more live interviews recorded during the chaos. Those will drop in coming weeks. This one is the quick hit before the flood.
Relational intelligence is the next frontier.
Who Made the List
It was a recap. Naturally.
Ira and Sarah reflected on the hallway chatter. The off-mic moments. The interviews they didn’t plan. They mentioned the names that mattered during the grind:
- Pat Yongpradit, GM of Education and Workforce Policy at Microsoft. Big tech presence, but did they deliver on policy or just products?
- Dr. Nneka McGee. Former Chief Academic Officer, now founder of Muon Global.
- Isabelle Hau from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. Academic muscle, applied.
- Heather E. McGowan. She writes, she coaches, she’s a LinkedIn voice. Three hats on one head.
- Melinda Glowacki at UC Irvine. Supervising, coaching, doing the dirty work of leadership.
- Tambra Clark. Birmingham City Schools. Getting hands dirty with tech integration.
- Mary Ehrenworth and Philip Seyfried. Both from Columbia University’s Teachers College. The teachers and the students talking back to each other.
- Jessica Garner. Managing Director of Innovative Learning at ISTE/ASCD.
- Court Shuller from Voices of Change.
Why these voices? Because they showed up. Or maybe they said something worth recording.
Who actually remembers what the keynote speaker said five days later? Exactly.
The floor is still echoing. We haven’t processed it all. You’ll hear the rest soon. For now, take what you need from this snapshot. Leave the rest on the table.
