SCELT IN THE WORLD

SCELT
Jun 30
3 min read

Updated: Jul 2

Anna Jančová at ISTE Live 2026:

Greetings from Orlando, Florida!

Thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Slovakia and SCELT, Anna Jančová is representing our teaching community at the ISTE conference in Orlando.

Before the event officially started, Anna spent her first day exploring the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Even without a direct pedagogical goal, her teacher’s mind immediately began looking for parallels with our profession.

Despite the massive crowds, everything ran like clockwork. The logistics were flawless, and the staff were efficient and helpful. Anna’s main takeaway? Careful organisation and preparation are at the heart of every successful activity, including teaching and learning.

The conference officially starts tomorrow, and Anna will be bringing us the latest trends, ideas, and inspiration to kick-start our lessons in September.

Day 2: ISTE begins ☀️

Anna has started her second day at the ISTE Conference, joining educators from around the world, exploring the latest trends in education and educational technology, and sharing insights from sunny Florida.

Day 3 & 4: Better questions, not easy answers

Day 3 of the ISTE+ASCD conference in Orlando was intense, with dozens of sessions running at the same time and far too much happening to capture everything.

Rather than trying to summarise it all, Anna pulled together a few raw, punchy fragments from her notebook.

One strong thread running through the day was the power of questions. They were everywhere: across the Convention Center, in session titles, and at the heart of discussions and debates.

The day also brought a reflection on AI. Some of the most effective prompts are the ones that ask the machine to question us first, to clarify what we really mean before it starts generating an answer. Progress often depends on the quality of the questions we ask.

Anna came looking for pedagogical trends, but found profound dilemmas instead. Here are a few worth thinking about over the summer:

What if everything we know about assessment is wrong?
How do we measure joy, courage, or originality?
What if we viewed learning as an act of generosity?
How do we bring the momentum of passion into our lessons?
What needs to change in assessment by 2040?
Who is assessment actually for?
Why don’t teachers cooperate more, and can AI help?

And a few more thoughts from Anna’s conference notebook:

Rebranding the essentials: Let’s stop calling 21st-century competencies “soft skills”. There is nothing soft about mastering empathy, resilience, or communication. These are life skills, or durable skills.
The over-scaffolding trap: Scaffolding is vital, but sometimes teachers do not just build a temporary support structure. They build the entire concrete fortress around their students, leaving them no room to move, try, or breathe on their own.
A rhyme to remember: Instead of walking into a classroom and asking, “What’s wrong with this child?”, we might start asking, “What’s strong?”
The “should” habit: As educators, we often overuse the phrase “you should” when talking to students or colleagues. But no one likes to be “should-on”.
The teacher’s paradox: There is one thing teachers cannot do, and that is nothing.

Anna may not return home with a notebook full of neat answers, but she will certainly return with better questions.

And perhaps it is the questions that move the world forward.

Final day: Reflections from Orlando airport

As Anna waited for her flight home from Orlando, she sent us one final reflection from her ISTE experience.

After several intense days of sessions, meetings, ideas, and conversations, a few impressions stayed with her most strongly:

American optimism as a practical tool: What we in Europe may sometimes perceive as inauthentic can actually work very well in practice. Sincerity, encouragement, and friendliness make communication easier and can help people overcome anxiety or hesitation.
Teachers as storytellers: The presentation skills of American educators were exceptional. They were not only experts in their fields, but also strong speakers who knew how to use voice, eye contact, and narrative to keep people engaged.
AI as a standard part of education: Artificial intelligence was present in almost every session. Across all levels of education, there was a clear effort to find ways to use it safely, meaningfully, and effectively as a supportive tool.
Empathy, reflection, and personalisation: These ideas resonated strongly and pointed to a challenge we also face at home. We often enter classrooms assuming we know what our students need, but we still fall short when it comes to differentiation. Are we truly trying to walk in their shoes? Paradoxically, AI may become a useful ally in helping us do this better.