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Help Us Shape the InstructureCon 2026 Schedule!

Erin Butler

We’re currently in the thick of reviewing nearly 400 incredible session proposals for InstructureCon 2026. It’s a great problem to have, but here’s the reality: we have more amazing ideas than we have time slots.

Since this event is for you, we want the Community to help us set the priorities. When you’re looking at a conference schedule, what makes you click "add to my agenda" immediately?

We want to hear from you:

Are you looking for deep-dive technical workshops, quick "lightning" tips, or high-level strategic sessions?
Would you prefer more sessions on a specific topic?
Do you value hands-on "bring your own laptop" sessions, or do you prefer polished presentations with Q&A?
If we have two great sessions on the same topic, what should be the deciding factor? (e.g., Speaker diversity, "New to InstCon" vs. "Hall of Fame" presenters, or specific niche use-cases?)

Let us know! Share a comment below with what you’re craving this year. Our events team is watching this thread closely and will be using your feedback to help make those tough final cuts!

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Comments

Chris

Hi Erin,

Thanks for starting this discussion. It's great that Instructure values attendee input on these questions! Here are my thoughts:

Are you looking for deep-dive technical workshops, quick "lightning" tips, or high-level strategic sessions?
- I would personally prefer "lightning" tips and technical workshops. Something I can really use immediately after the conference in my workflow. Strategic sessions can be useful too, but the "payoff" on those seems to be much longer (but sometimes those large long conversations are actually necessary).
Would you prefer more sessions on a specific topic?
- I'm sure there will be a lot of AI-related sessions, but I'm hoping AI doesn't completely dominate the conference.
Do you value hands-on "bring your own laptop" sessions, or do you prefer polished presentations with Q&A?
- I personally prefer presentations with Q&A. The "bring your own laptop" sessions often devolve into solving individual user issues throughout the session, which can get somewhat awkward and time-consuming.

I hope others can voice their opinions here too. I'm sure there will be varying viewpoints on all of these questions!

-Chris

Greg

💯 on not having too many sessions focused on genAI. It's nice to be able to attend sessions that deal with effectively using tools we've had for a while.

Greg

Like Chris, I'm very happy that to have this opportunity to share an attendee's perspective.

I'm looking for a wide range of sessions that provide both things to think about and things to do. My favorite sessions involve seeing how the same tools and toys that I have access to are being used by people at other institutions, including institutions outside of my sector. I teach at a community college in the US, and one of my earliest InstructureCon memories is a presentation by a K12 teacher from Australia on student blogging. Our institutions have little in common but their creative use of technology to help students learn inspired me to use more open pedagogy.

I'm not as excited about bring your own laptop sessions. When I see something interested being demonstrated I want to play along, but I'd rather do that outside of session time as I want my focus on the content of the presentation and interacting with other attendees. With that in mind, the best presentations are those where the presenter has some kind of resources document (even an invitation to ask questions via email). The unconference is a great time to find others who have similar interests and want to play together.

For the duplicate topics, I hope you decide to keep both of them. It's a normal problem to have to decide between different topics offered at the same time, and if the same topic is offered at a different time then more participants have the opportunity to learn about it. But with a limited resources like presentation slots, I hope speaker diversity is an important criterion. However you measure diversity, the more different voices that are part of a conversation, the better the conversation will be over all.

melodyc_lam

Here are my thoughts:

Are you looking for deep-dive technical workshops, quick "lightning" tips, or high-level strategic sessions?
- I like to be able to take away from a session things that I can implement when I get back to my district/state, or potentially ideas of PD opportunities that I can offer at my district (train the trainer style).
Would you prefer more sessions on a specific topic?
- I echo the sentiment that there needs to be a balance between gen AI and other topics, especially when gen AI may not be widely available at an institution (K-12)
Do you value hands-on "bring your own laptop" sessions, or do you prefer polished presentations with Q&A?
- I don't mind a hands-on session at all — however, there's the technical aspect that we need to think about (network capacity, access outside institution, etc), and depending on the session it may require that the user has access to the beta instance (especially if it's more technical), which not everybody has access to.
If we have two great sessions on the same topic, what should be the deciding factor? (e.g., Speaker diversity, "New to InstCon" vs. "Hall of Fame" presenters, or specific niche use-cases?)
- I'm wondering if there's not an opportunity here to have the presenters collaborate on one session especially if it's a popular or needed topic? I think speaker diversity is very important in terms of view points between high ed, K-12, and potentially gov/business, although I've picked up ideas from high-ed oriented sessions.

jsowalsk

Are you looking for deep-dive technical workshops, quick "lightning" tips, or high-level strategic sessions? Not really.
Would you prefer more sessions on a specific topic? Yes, specific topics would be great. Just not all of it be AI.
Do you value hands-on "bring your own laptop" sessions, or do you prefer polished presentations with Q&A? Polished presentations.
If we have two great sessions on the same topic, what should be the deciding factor? (e.g., Speaker diversity, "New to InstCon" vs. "Hall of Fame" presenters, or specific niche use-cases?) How about focusing on Higher Education versus K-12?