The Tabs Are Alive (to the Sound of My Conference Brain)


Oyster Sauce and I are just now landing back on Earth after yesterday’s NCCTE Summer Conference adventure - and I do mean adventure. We rolled in ready to spread the gospel of CTE + Epic = DREAM TEAM, Unreal Engine in hand, boots laced, badge polished, and vinyl personas fully activated. And you know what? It. Was. Glorious.

I stood there talking about game engines and education ecosystems, while secretly marveling that somehow, after everything, this is what I get to do now. Real Teachers in the audience. Real questions. Real "ooooh" moments when we talked about project-based learning in esports design or 3D rendering as career prep. And the vinyl figures? Big hit. (CEO of Creativity badge = absolutely going to be a sticker. Or patch. Or tattoo. We’ll see how far this goes.)


But let me pause here and tell you what it’s really like after a presentation like that.

My brain?
Not “busy.”
We’re talking 85 browser tabs open, 5 of them playing audio, one at 2x speed, another glitching like an old AIM chat, and at least one tab forgotten behind Spotify labeled “Important But Fuzzy.”

I had a moment today when I realized one of the brilliant folks I’d been messaging with on LinkedIn - brainstorming session upgrades with - might have actually been a the panel that interviewed me for a teaching job. I knew he looked familiar. Did I recognize him during our chat?
Absolutely not.
Did I have a minor existential giggle when I put it together?
100%.

And look, I’m not saying I’m scatterbrained. I’m just saying when your brain is this full of student ideas, systems design, pixel art rubrics, and cross-disciplinary learning models... you might forget a face for a hot minute. You might also forget to bring a fan and a drop cord, but that’s another story. (Thanks again, Heather — literal hero.)

🎮 Huge thanks to Mike Rene at NCDPI for inviting me to represent the amazing learning journey I’ve been on these past few years.

🎮 Special appreciation to Steve Isaacs from Epic Games — your friendship, mentorship, and guidance continue to inspire me. I wouldn’t be here without your support.

🎮 I also want to give a big shoutout to Kathryn Wright at the App State booth, who patiently and kindly walked me through the CTE licensure process. Thanks to her, I’m already on my way to enrolling. Incredible support like that makes such a difference!

🎮 And let’s hear it again for Heather, who saved the day by swapping laptops with me when my gaming rig battery called it quits.

🎮 I had people stopping me in the hallway afterward to ask how we got our students to engage so deeply. Easy.

“Our students thought programming was boring… not anymore.”
When they get to build in Fortnite, scan their own faces into digital meshes, or design a virtual museum of their dreams, it’s not just code - it’s them, in code.
And that? That’s where everything changes.

Want to explore the resources I shared? Visit:
👉 www.tori-sparks.com/cte
I’ll keep updating that link as I stumble across new gems - probably while trying to remember where I left my charger.

Catch y’all on the next tab,
Tori Sparks
(& Oyster Sauce 🐾, CEO of Creativity™)

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