Guests arrive at ConnectED Summit

By Colter Hettich
Features Editor

Vendors set up their booths Thursday afternoon, and ACU faculty and staff prepped the Teague Special Events Center for the night's keynote event. At 6:45 p.m., crowds anxious for the impending conference flooded the Teague Center, most individuals with their mobile device in hand.

Guests had an hour to peruse vendor booths and get in a game of Wii sports before the evening commenced at 8 p.m. Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Blackboard, Genesis Network Solutions, Moodle, Pearson and Pharos were among the vendors.

John Matthews, Alcatel-Lucent system engineer, described Alcatel-Lucent's presence as a natural response to its ongoing relationship with the university.

"We've been doing business with ACU for about seven or eight years now," Matthews said. "We've been working on several innovative projects, and this is just an extension of that."

Chad Martin, owner of webfirecracker.com and designer of ACU’s mobile interface, greeted visitors from his booth. Martin said he most looks forward to the sharing of information with other designers.

“The part I’m excited about is getting to share what I know,” Martin said. “Tomorrow I will be walking people through the [ACU Mobile design] process, going all the way back to the early sketches.”

Chris Murman, software tech for Genesis Network Solutions, said Genesis partnered with ACU years ago and hopes to join ACU in leading the mobile learning field.

“This is an area of software development that is wide open right now,” Murman said. “Genesis wants to be one of the pioneers.”