Monday morning bus buddies
Planning to catch the conference shuttle bus tomorrow morning?
The shuttle bus will pick delegates up at each of the three conference hotels:
- Toowoomba Central Plaza Apartments
- The City Golf Club Motel
- Potter’s Hotel
We wanted to make your first morning as easy as possible, so we'll have a committee member at each of the three hotels to ensure that all delegates can find the bus and that everyone gets onboard.
Carmel, Madelaine and Leonie will be there to greet you. Keep an eye out for them so you know they're in the right place.
Here's what they look like:
We'll brief you on other important bus info across the conference, but you can check the timetable at any time, either online or in the app.
We're looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!
What to pack for ASCILITE 2017
Are you a last minute packer? Not to worry! We've got your packing list sorted.
As well the essentials, we recommend you pack the following.
Technology
Given the nature of ASCILITE and the conference program, technology should be at the top of your packing list. We want you to fully engage in person and online, so don’t forget your:
- Smartphone – possibly your best friend at the conference. This is how you’ll access the conference app, Click Game, social media and photograph slides for reference.
- Tablet – for all your email/blogging/capturing-moments-of-inspiration needs
- Charging cables for all your devices.
- Portable charger/power bank - you don’t want to tempt your phone on 1% when you’re so close to snapping the perfect shot for the Click Game on the app!
- Power board – pack a power board to use at the hotel and at the conference. This is a proven way to make new friends - help others power up!
- USB with your presentation materials – if you're speaking, we recommend you bring a USB with your presentation materials on it just in case.
Remember to load up your mobile devices with all the essentials:
- The conference app – check your email for your invitation to download the app.
- Uber app (download from the App Store or Google Play)
- Garden City Cabs app (download from the App Store or Google Play)
- Twitter – you can tweet from the conference app, but if you prefer to use the Twitter app, make sure it's on your devices and you've got a search set up for the conference hashtag #ascilite17.
- Tripit – forward your flight and accomodation info to TripIt and you'll have all your travel info in one place.
And don't forget the low tech:
- Business cards – I have a tendency to forget these!
- Pen and notebook – if you're not a digital notetaker, make sure you pack something to write with.
Clothing and accessories
- Shoes – USQ is situated on a beautiful campus full of greenery. This means you’ll be walking between sessions and probably wanting to take a stroll around the Japanese Gardens or Gumbi Gumbi Gardens, so include some comfortable shoes.
- Clothes – in addition to your regular sartorial aesthetic, it might be wise to pack a jacket or jumper in case of a temperature drop or chilly air conditioning. BOM predicts temperatures of between 16 and 26 degrees.
- Umbrella– BOM tells us the chance of rain is high: 90% on Monday, 60% on Tuesday, and 5% on Wednesday. We recommend you pack an umbrella that will fit in your satchel to keep you dry as you move around campus.
- Conference Dinner – hunt down your perfect op shop gem to fit the theme and dust off your favourite (however impractical) pair of shoes and dance the night away.
Emergency supplies
Pack a few emergency supplies to bring to the conference:
- Panadol – we suspect this will be needed the morning after the conference dinner!
- Bandaids – particularly useful if you're planning on bringing some fancy new shoes or dancing the night away in killer heels.
Have we missed anything? What other essentials are on your packing list?
Introducing the Click Game!
Welcome tributes!
Our Head Gamemaker has been busily creating a gamification experience for ASCILITE 2017 that will allow you to earn badges and win prizes throughout the conference.
The game will become available to delegates via the conference app on Monday morning, but we wanted to give you a bit of an idea of what's in store ahead of time.
How it works
The Click Game will run via the conference app.
- Tap the Click Game icon on the conference app to start playing (you'll see the icon pop up on Monday morning)
- Complete challenges by uploading photos.
- Unlock a badge by completing all the challenges within it, or just complete the challenges that interest you.
- Watch the leaderboard to see how you're performing against the competition.
Watch for unexpected twists and turns as our Head Gamemaker shakes things up!
Don’t be intimated if your competitors streak ahead on the leaderboard. There will be many opportunities to catch them!
Prizes
Daily victors
The holder of the highest score at 5pm Monday and Tuesday will win a Canon Selphy photo printer (valued at $159). (Note: The daily victor from Monday is not eligible for the Tuesday daily victor prize.)
Overall victor
The overall victor will be the holder of the highest overall score at midday on Wednesday. They will win a Go Pro Hero 5 (valued at $497).
Mystery prizes
Mystery prizes will be awarded across the three days according to secret criteria. These prizes will not be awarded based on points, but based on criteria related to creativity and ingenuity. Even if you’re not planning to compete for the daily or overall prizes, you’ve got a chance at a mystery prize!
May the odds be ever in your favour.
There's an app for that!
We've been busily building a conference app to help you plan and manage your conference experience.
Conference delegates should have received an email on Friday afternoon inviting them to download the app.
We strongly encourage all delegates to make use of the app in the lead up to and during the conference.
Why use the app?
We have summarised below no less than 17 reasons why you should use the conference app.
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- It's the Organising Committee's direct line of communication with you throughout the conference. We'll be posting announcements and updates related to the program and social events. We promise not to inundate you with push notifications! But we will post things you need to know to help you get around the conference. The app is going to be a really important tool for us because this conference is on a university campus, and that means we won't have a PA system to make announcements (although we do have a bell to help us get delegates moving in the right direction!). Notifications will help us to get information to you.
- Once the conference gets underway, the app will always have the most up-to-date version of the program. So if any unforeseen circumstances crop up and the program needs to change, the app will be your single point of truth.
- You can build your personal schedule for the conference ahead of time so you don't miss any of the sessions you want to get to. You can also set a reminder to prompt you to head to the right location, and you can export your schedule into your default calendar on your device.
- While we're talking about the program, we should mention that all the papers and posters are available for viewing in the app. So if you're in a session and you want to know more about the topic, you can quickly and easily access the paper.
- My pet hate at conferences is having to trawl the web for presenters' Twitter handles when I want to tweet about a session. We've saved you that hassle - we invited all authors to provide us with their Twitter handle, and we've populated the author profiles with all the handles we have. No more hunting down Twitter handles for speakers!
- And you won't need to go hunting for their bios, either. Each author's page includes a bio so you can find out a bit more about the authors. You can also see a list of all the sessions a author is involved in from their speaker page.
- To help you find sessions, every session's page includes a geotag icon that you can tap to see the room location on a campus map.
- We've created a Toowoomba map that plots all the key locations for the conference: campus; the dine around restaurants; the three conference hotels; and Picnic Point (the venue for the conference dinner).
- And to make getting around Toowoomba easier, we've included travel information, including the courtesy bus timetable, in the app.
- We've included information about our favourite places to eat and drink in the app to help you find good eats and great coffee.
- All the info you need about the all important social events can also be found in the app.
- The app allows you to rate sessions and we'll be encouraging delegates to do that, to help us get a sense for how the different session types worked and what sessions people enjoyed the most.
- The social feed on the app offers Twitter integration. That means you can post to the social feed in the app and to Twitter simultaneously, with the hashtag pre-populated to make it super easy for you. This is great news, because it means those delegates who don't use Twitter can engage with your content in the app, and without any extra effort, you can contribute to the Twitter feed and help those people playing along at home see what's happening at the conference.
- The app pulls hashtagged content into a social wall, that you can access from within the app, which means anything hastagged with #ascilite17 on Instagram and Twitter will be visible to you in the app. We'll also be displaying the social wall around the venue.
- Customise your delegate profile to provide other delegates with key information about you. We've made your profile public or private, depending on whether you told us you were happy to have your details included in the app at time of registration. You can change the privacy settings at any time. Add a photo to your profile to help other delegates put a face to your name.
- There's also direct messaging in the app, so you can message other delegates, for example, to arrange a meet up.
- And last but definitely not least, we have planned an engaging gamification experience that will be run through the app. You'll have the opportunity to win great prizes across the conference.
The Organising Committee are well versed in how to use the app, so if you have any questions during the conference, please find one of us, or visit the registration desk.
If you're a delegate and you didn't receive your invite to download the app, please shoot us an email at ascilite2017@usq.edu.au and we'll re-send it.
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