What a conference…  This was my third ITS conference and it was an incredibly formative and informative experience.  I watched several themes unfold that help me look at the ITS community and the challenges we face in a different way. In addition, the organizers and other senior community members provided a glimpse of the inner-workings of the research system that is incredibly helpful in understanding how to work more effectively as a community member myself. To make the experience round-trip, it was also very rewarding to see others who have been influenced by my earlier work and are now learning from the lessons that I have put so much effort into sharing.

The total of the content I have attempted to absorb during the week would be impossible to share in this short note, but there was one surprising message upon which I find myself reflecting. The keynote speaker Dr. Chee-Kit Looi stated the emergent theme eloquently: We need to bridge the gap between research and the classroom.  This is an old and obvious idea in some sense, but many people brought it into a different perspective for me at this conference. Researchers are starting to look at this question as a research area, rather than a practical roadblock.  A perfect example, and a very interesting piece of work, is Dror Ben-Naim's efforts to return "pedagogical ownership" to the teachers. Taking this type of research-based approach to bringing teachers into our tutor-creation process might be the way to find real solutions to this problem.

In addition to the information about tutoring systems themselves, this conference was also very informative about the community in which they are created.  This started with Dr. Kay's welcome talk where she gave us a clear idea of how reviews are put to use and what the process of selecting papers for publication is like. The next major enlightening moment about process was the panel discussion when Marco Marsella and John Cherniavsky discussed details about the goals and achievements of the funding agencies.  Finally, Dr. Mostow, through his presence and humor during the conference, let us all know a little about what it must be like to organize a gathering of this scale.  It is rare to get such a glimpse into the way our community works from the perspective of different stakeholders: deciding funding, accepting papers, even organizing the forum in which ITS builders can share information and grow.  The transparency and level of detail that was shared helped me learn much about how a research community operates.

Finally, when attending this year, I noticed that for all the ITS community has done for me; I have given back to the group as well.  I first contributed to ITS in 2006, and a fellow researcher, Ido Roll, approached me during this conference to tell me that he had employed the tactics presented in my first work to build the system he was presenting this year. Hameedullah Kazi presented a system that had similarities to our work, and when discussing it with him he said that he had used my prior publications as reference.  Finally, Niels Pinkwart presented a poster that showed survey results from experts on developing argumentation systems.  I participated in that survey by invitation. So, taking all of this into consideration in just one short week, I can see how my contributions are starting to be of use to a larger group of researchers.

This year's ITS conference helped me grow as a research scientist in many facets.  I am grateful to be able to attend such a gathering.  It has given me inspiration, capability, and confidence to approach and contribute to the exceptional body of work that ITS community provides.