I somehow managed to snag a great table in the cafe on Monday morning. I was sitting at it by myself when I noticed a woman who was looking for a place to sit. I offered her a chair and we struck up a conversation about Moodle. I think I have found a lifelong friend in Nancy Pratt. (She posted a response to this blog as well.) I also had the pleasure of meeting Bud Hunt. I have had a blast following him on Twitter over the last week as he has searched for “hot doughnuts” while on vacation. While I was talking to Bud the Teacher Sharon Nussbaum-Beach walked up and introduced herself to me. Put her arm on my shoulder and said she recognized my name. How???? Like I said at the beginning….I am just a teacher. She must have spent some time on the Ning. When I got home and checked her CV I was truly impressed—-17 pages long! What hasn’t she done?

On another visit to the Bloggers’ Cafe I ended up listening in on a discussion about blogging and Twitter etiquette. I looked up and noticed “the face” of NECC 2008—Jeff Utecht. I quickly sent him a message through the NECC Ning telling him I appreciated his comments and that I was sitting directly across from him. A few minutes later he looked up, smiled and waved. We never did get the chance to talk. I’ll catch him next year….

It disappoints me that some of the “important” people did get much out of NECC. I did not get much sleep at the conference because I was so EXCITED about interacting with people who are dedicated to making a difference in education. I have started following the movers and shakers on Twitter (bethstill) and, of course, I have subscribed to their blogs. I have talked about the lessons I learned at NECC, but at times I feel like I am not making any progress. That is why I blog. Even though I do not have an audience I keep holing out hope that someday someone will care about what I think and they will start listening. If you got to the end of this post—thank you!

I also enjoyed the discussions around Clay Shirky’s book, and as always that I get to meet f2f the many bloggers I only otherwise know in the virtual blogosphere.

I did get the sense at the end of the day that things had not gone quite as many of the edubloggers would have liked them to, and the Pearson thing struck a bad note for sure. I agree with most of the things Wes has written here about acknowledging Steve’s efforts to put this together, and also about the more influential edubloggers voicing their suggestions to right some of the things they felt could be done better – in the spirit of true collaboration – *during* the course of the unconference rather than blogging about the negatives after the fact.

That said I’m sure there are lessons learned from this one that everyone will hopefully take forward to similar open, collaborative exchanges in the future.

-Shuchi Grover

From what I see there is still a large number of participants (a majority?) that don’t know the tools or the possibilities. (Is it someone in the prior comments that said they overheard someone say, “what is podcasting?”) Not everyone is where you are Will, they need to be brought along/caught up to even have the conversation.

As far as EduBloggerCon. After last year, it was given a great deal of hype (over-hype). After hearing about that mostly spontaneous event from last year, everyone wanted to be a part of it … like many good things, once it gets to the masses it gets watered down and commercialized. It’s not going to have the same feel for those that were there in the beginning.

As an edtech leader, instead of bashing the conference and specific sessions, model the behavior you want to see and next time do a session that is not about a tool. (Note that the film crews were there doing what we/you push for … breaking down the walls, including a global community, allowing for (possibly, I don’t know) a live stream … hey wait, that’s what your session was about! I wonder if all those uStreamers in the various sessions were distracting the people that were there for the conventional face-to-face presentation.)

What did I get from the conference? Some insight, methods, and vision for getting technology integrated (fused) into the curriculum at my school and motivation and vision to continue to lead this charge in my sphere of influence. I continued to build the vague vision I have for education in the future. And yes … I learned, and was introduced to some specific, useful and cool tools that I may not have otherwise run into.

There is, not surprisingly, a lot of conversation about EduBloggerCon, NECC and such. Will and Ewan have weighed in with their thoughts about unconferencing and whether or not EBC was a success, how to handle NECC, etc…  and you can also rea…

There is, not surprisingly, a lot of conversation about EduBloggerCon, NECC and such. Will and Ewan have weighed in with their thoughts about unconferencing and whether or not EBC was a success, how to handle NECC, etc…  and you can also read wh…

I’ve commented on this elsewhere but will repeat it again here– echoing what Ewan wrote, NO sessions should have been cancelled. The essence of an “unconference” is that people don’t have to get permission or “approval” to share and learn together. So if one person wants to talk about WordPress plug-ins (I did) and at least 1 person wants to join in, then by all means let them! We could have gone in the hallway and talked about this– and in fact I’m sure we will in the blogger’s cafe and in other venues. The day did have a “conferency” feel. That said, as others point out many people came with different experience sets, and I have heard a lot of positive feedback from others. I’m confident Steve H and others will listen to the community and strive to make upcoming events even better. Ewan has some good points and I think we should definitely listen to his advice on no time limits, no rows, free beer, etc.

To Sue’s comment, I think we are only starting to glimpse the potential we have for social media tools to change our own practices as well as the ideas, perceptions, and practices of others. I think Pearson’s presence at this event was a real positive: a sign that edublogger ideas are being taken seriously and traditional publishers are listening. I may be in the minority on this, but I view this as a big positive.

I also agree with Darren’s point about us needing to engage together in conversations to make EduBloggerCon better. While I agree with you Bud, that everyone can and should make their own choices about attending or walking out– and you certainly made a loud point by leaving early Will– there are multiple opportunities to engage in discussions about how things can and should change. This post you’ve shared, Will, gives us an opportunity to engage in that dialog, and that is good.

In all this I don’t think we should lose sight of thanking Steve H for his hard work in helping coordinate this, and ISTE’s willingness to provide EduBloggerCon with a space. It may not have been an optimal space, and if not, let’s find a better one next year. I’ve thought we should see about using a dorm facility where we could rent rooms for the night preceding and following the EduBloggerCon event. We also need to incorporate “social objects” as Ewan described today, which Alan November does well at BLC. (I’m told he does, I haven’t been there yet.)

Maybe we should contribute to a wiki page which includes all the ways we think EduBloggerCon can be improved next time. Let’s use the collaborative tools at our fingertips to demonstrate to ourselves and others how these tools can be used to solve problems and make things better.

But then there was also this sense of deja vu. Haven’t we already been over this ground? And isn’t it time to move beyond talk about what our administrators and colleagues need to know and do? Where’s the take-it-to-the-next-level action plan?

As to the Pearson cameras and sound booms, they didn’t bother me as much as some. I doubt they’re going to get much monitary profit from what we say and I certainly don’t think my face is going to sell any of their goods.