This is the first in a series of weekly blogs that features the OLC Innovate Conference Program Committee and Steering Committee members sharing their thoughts on the conference and the great city of New Orleans. We hope you use this series to plan your days and nights while at Innovate in NOLA in April.
New Orleans is a vibrant community, full of art and music and good times! Innovate 2017 will certainly be one of them. I’m looking forward to connecting with my editors and editorial board members from MERLOT, and having our Leadership Meeting and dinner. I’m really excited about the work the Steering Committee has done planning wonderful new and returning elements to the conference. The Innovation Lab was such a hit last year and I’m looking forward to what will be my new “aha” experience there.
New Orleans food is amazing—I grew up here and love to visit my old favorites: Commander’s Palace, Palace Café, Galatoire’s,and Café du Monde. The New Orleans Museum of Art is amazing, as are the galleries along Magazine Street and Royal Street. A short walk from the hotel is the ferry—for $2, you can walk on and ride across the river–on the west bank, you can visit Algiers Point and the lovely houses, shops and restaurants there. There’s also the Jazz Walk of Fame on the levee.
Another fun thing to do is to ride the streetcar. The fare is $1.25 one-way, but you can also buy “Jazzy Passes,” for 1 day ($3) or three days ($3). The St. Charles line will take you through the Garden District and along St. Charles Avenue all the way to Carrollton. The Canal Street line will take you to some of the New Orleans cemeteries which are quite different from any burial area you’ve ever been to—we bury people above ground because we are below sea level! You can also take a secondary line from there to City Park where the New Orleans Museum of Art is located. There are lots of apps you can download ahead of time to make travel and tours much easier.
The conference will be full of great surprises, energizing speakers and opportunities to network with long-time online educators and those just beginning to explore this genre. Some of my finest moments at the conference have been in the exhibit area just talking with other attendees or sampling the amazing information at the Emerging Ideas sessions.
I hope to see you at Innovate in my home town!