Reflections on EduBloggerCon

June29

Sorry for getting this up so late, but I got home late yesterday after EduBloggerCon, and a second night out on the river walk and, I was at Enchanted Springs ranch with DEN all day. I have been posting photos, and video on my tumblog.

Repeating such a seminal event like EduBloggerCon always invites comparisons. I had not been there last time, so I don’t have memories to compare this experience to. I think this was a larger crowd than they had last year, and much bigger than I’ve experienced at Classroom 2.0 Live in San Francisco or EduBloggerCon West at CUE in Palm Springs. I liked two things I heard from folks. Brian Crosby who attended last year discussed how it didn’t have the same “magic” as last year, but that doesn’t mean it was bad. For me, the worst parts of it were still better than most official PD I’ve gone to, and the great moments were fantastic. Scott McLeod pointed out that there wasn’t a “controversy” because when folks didn’t like what was offered, they left, went the Bloggers’ Café and made some PD of their own.

Loved it:

I loved the Diigo presentation, and Jen Dorman was fantastic to work with on it. It took place in one of the lounges (Second Life), which had lots of comfy chairs and small tables. There was my NECC roommate, Gail Desler, and a REALLY helpful Aussie, Dean Groom, who helped get the Promethian board set up.so I could share my desktop. Whoever you are (or if you know who he was), drop a comment with a name and some contact info. I owe him a beer. I was alone as the preso started and sorted people by need, ability, the apps they wanted to learn more about. I showed Diigo basics, and discussed the use in Elementary, then I gratefully handed off to Jennifer Dorman, for discussion of groups, which she used a lot with her older students. I LOVE working with a partner on a collaborative presentation like that; it’s really my favorite way to do things.

Wes Fryer made an excellent case for digital story telling and shared some great resources tor getting it started, and a good approach to take (look for local projects, that can be tied into the larger world through networks and the Internet.

The Social Networking for professional development was a nice round table. Someone noted in a blog about the space not being reconfigured to be inclusive, but in that session (in the first time slot), chairs were moved into a circle (although many stayed outside, but they still participated).

Surprises:

The first is how many people recognized me. I apparently made quite a little eye-brow raising in having David Warlick recognize my name (although he was not able to immediately place me, but no matter). I must have posted more than I realized on the NECC Ning forums (all posts come with my pic) so lots of folks mentioned that.

The Smack-Down was better for me as an online event than an in-person one. I was called on to embed some interactive stuff at literally the last moment, on the Wiki to show examples, PLUS, I was helping Scott Merrick set up a Ustream through EdTechTalk (which dropped a couple of times). In addition, since I had embedded my own coveritlive session, I felt obliged to live blog it. Everyone who commented was really wonderful. It became, in effect, the backchannel for the UStream, and I even got suggestions for submissions from remote viewers (one was in a session in the next room, watching the live blog/Ustream). It was all too funny! The hands down hit of the show was a bunch of laminated cards on a ring. No, I’m not kidding…

Kevin Honeycutt is an awesome educator from Kansas. For a four day in-service on technology, his team printed out little cards (the size of a moo card), laminated them (as he said, what teacher will throw away something that has been laminated), then told teachers to collect a tag for each application that they thought they wanted more info on. There was an icon for the application on one side, and the email and other contact info for someone to mentor them on the other side.

I was shocked to see that my live blog had over 200 unique views, but I suppose a lot of them were folks physically at the Smack Down session.

The other hmm moment was about the session during Diigo presentation, but I didn’t have it until later. A group left the sessions, and went down to the Bloggers’ Café to “jail break” an iPhone. I passed down that way, looking for folks who might be interested in the Diigo session (there weren’t). It was a large crowd, but in thinking about it later, it was largely men, while the Diigo session I had at the same time was mostly women. Interesting that both groups were doing something “hands on” but in different ways.

One Comment to

“Reflections on EduBloggerCon”

  1. June 29th, 2008 at 10:28 pm      Reply Mathew Says:

    Very cool. Wish I could be there.


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