If you want to make the most of your conference experience, you need to download the ILA 2018 Conference app. Use it to quickly and easily find the sessions and speakers you want to see, and save them to your calendar to create your perfect conference itinerary; you can even schedule time to visit your favorite exhibitors in the Exhibit Hall or add meetups and lunch plans. The app lists the most current information about event timing and locations. It even includes sessions and events not listed in the program.

Have you downloaded it yet? Good! Let’s dive right in!

This year, we introduced a brand-new app with a different layout and fresh features. In this post, I’m going to go through some of basics of finding events and setting up your schedule. If you have any questions or issues, you can contact customerservice@reading.org or tweet to @ILAToday and use the tag #ILA18App.

Signing in

The ILA 2018 Conference app has a sign-in option this year. You can use the app without signing in to view the session information, but you’ll miss out on some of the best features by remaining a guest user.

To sign in to the app, you’ll need to enter your badge number and the email address you used to register for ILA 2018. Your badge number was sent to you in your registration confirmation email; it is listed as a confirmation number in the email. You can find it by signing in to the ILA Registration & Hotel site and clicking the big yellow View Confirmation button. It’s also on your badge, of course, but you don’t want to wait until you are on-site to start using planning your schedule.

You will only need to sign in once per device. Signing in on multiple devices shares the information between them; you can create your itinerary on your tablet at home, then access your schedule on your phone in Austin. If you registered for any ticketed events, such as Institute Day on Friday or Children’s Literature Day on Monday, they should be automatically added to your schedule.

Discover ILA 2018

The app is divided into two main dashboards: Discover and Connect. Discover covers all the events, sessions, and exhibitors taking place from July 20–23. The Connect dashboard contains your profile, contacts, favorites, and saved information. Today, I’m going to show off the Discover tab. We’ll look at the Connect tab (and other things) next time.

You’ll notice the 2018 app is organized into the following tiles:

• My Schedule: This contains your schedule of events for the conference.
• Core Conference: This covers the Saturday and Sunday program for ILA 2018.
• Conference Floor Plan: Here, you’ll find maps of the conference center to help you find session rooms and the like.
• Exhibitors: This section not only contains a list of all the exhibitors at ILA 2018, but also exhibitor-sponsored sessions, Learning Lab schedules, and book publisher book signings (we are still adding these).
• Institute Day: All Friday institutes and events are listed here.
• Children’s Literature Day: This section covers everything you need to know about our new Monday program. The events on Children’s Literature Day are ticketed and should appear in My Schedule when you sign in. You cannot change the time or event you have signed up for; we included the Build Itinerary option for anyone who accidentally removes events from their calendar.
• Sponsors: These are our show sponsors. Please visit them in the Exhibit Hall and let them know you saw them listed in the app. Their support is vital to ILA’s mission.
• Show Info: Here you will find extra information to help you navigate the show, including the Schedule at a Glance, the Shuttle Schedule, and the Code of Conduct.

There are a lot of options for how to filter the sessions. I recommend playing with the filters under Core Conference to see which shows the information you want. For example, if you want to see what is happening at ILA Central this year, click Core Conference, then View by Type, then ILA Central Presentation. If you want to see what sessions we have for our specialized learning tracks, click View by Tracks and select the track that best fits your needs. Is there a presenter you absolutely must see? View by Speaker lists them all! You can also use the search bar at the top of the screen.

Although you can look at the program as a guest user, you can only save information as favorites and create an agenda if you are signed in to the app. (I told you it was worth signing in!) Let’s look at adding a session to the schedule. I’ll use the Equity in Education Program panel as my example.

The panel will take place on Saturday, July 21, at 11:00 AM. To add this to My Schedule, click on the name to open the event listing and full description. Then click Add to Agenda, which gives an overview of the time and location and has the option to add an alert as a reminder (which I recommend for the big-name marquee events; you need to arrive early to get a seat). Finally, click Save at the top. It’s now on the calendar in My Schedule.

You can also schedule time to visit a specific exhibitor in the Exhibit Hall the same way you schedule sessions: Navigate to an exhibitor you want to visit, click the Add to Agenda button, and create the appointment. The only real difference is there is no specific date or time associated with an exhibitor, so you need to add that information.

You can add events directly to your agenda. Open My Schedule, click and hold on the time slot for which you want to schedule something, and then pick from the three options available:

• Add Exhibitor to add an exhibitor to your schedule.
• Add Event to pick a session.
• Add Other to create your own event, like “Meet Lara for Lunch.”

That’s everything you need to start making and refining your schedule for ILA 2018 in the app! Next time, we’ll look at the Connect tab and a couple other features that can be useful on-site. Remember, if you have any questions or issues, you can contact customerservice@reading.org or tweet to @ILAToday and use the tag #ILA18App.

See you in Austin!

Wesley Ford is a conference veteran and the resident ILA 2018 Conference app expert. He is presenting a demo of the app in Austin on Saturday, July 21, at 10:00 AM in ILA Central. Add it to your schedule as practice.