It’s been a nice weekend at home. This was probably the first weekend in months that I have enjoyed entirely at home in many weeks. This morning I’ll be off to Starbucks to try to catch up on some writing projects — without a chance in hades of actually getting caught up.
I’ll be back on the road in a few days to work at the state school boards’ conference in Little Rock, so I’m still in conference mode, and to keep me thinking, Amy Vejraska posted an interesting comment on my blog last night about conference 2.0 (excuse me, but 2.0 says it).
She said,
We presented on web 2.0 for beginners, and then wanted to do a little “after session” with our laptops to help people start getting readers set up, etc. BUT the wifi, as you may remember, would not allow us to do that. I have already talked to the conference coordinators about ending each day next year with a sort of hands on byol hour where presenters just spend some time showing people how to get connected after the sessions.
I like this idea. I’m not convinced that traditional presentations are dead, that we should replace the conference with entirely unconference sessions, just like I think that a good lecture is a wonderful thing to sit through. But the idea of laying on top of a traditional conference one, two, or even three hours of unconference sessions, and DIY work with access to more experienced educators has a lot of appeal to me.
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I love the idea of a hands on session. Too many times I’ve gone to conferences and learned about new tools, only to get home and have no idea where to start. It would be cool to have all the presenters in one room and have people trying different things and have help right there on hand. I hope people who hold conferences agree with this idea.
I think having some unofficial time after a conference session is a great idea. Many times, I walk away from a conference with a ton of great ideas but not enough time to get them started. This would help and also provide some instruction that might be needed.
What I’ve done in those situations is setup my laptop as a ad-hoc wifi network, installing a wiki and web based chat locally. This way participants in my session can still collaborate and discuss what is going on and I’m not at the whim of the convention center’s Internet connection.
This doesn’t help when you want to show off web2.0 tools, but it’s better than nothing. 🙂
METC is planning to have BYOL sessions next year, likewise sessions with concurring chats available – Jan 26-28, 2009 St Charles MO
Go to http://www.csd.org and click on Technology to see what the Virtual Learning Center has to offer. David was great the past two years. We also learned from David Jakes, Wes Fryer, Gail Lovely, Rem Jackson and several other first class techies!
Sounds like a great idea to me. I know I have come back from conferences and PD (in the past) full of ideas about how to use the information I have learned but not entirely sure how to create it without spending a lot of time “playing” to get everything set up – and I like to play. Imagine those teachers who are unsure of even where to start, let only feel confident enough to “play” and figure some of the stuff out themselves.
The ultimate conference session, to me, would follow a research based lesson design which means that there would be a clear goal, an assessment of the participants prior knowledge, new information to give participants new information, time to process and apply that information through interaction with other participants and then time to reflect on the learning. I guess that’s about a half day for a session at least. But, none of that is possible, in a “technology” conference unless the conference sites VASTLY improve their Internet access. In the last month, I’ve read numerous accounts of presenters going to conferences where the connections were entirely inadequate for the content of their workshops. Looks like we also need a conference center 2.0!
I like this idea. I am going to be a first time presenter at MICCA this year and would love to hold a BYOL session to get folks started on my topic…wikis and blogs in the classroom. I use them, and I want to let others know how beneficial they have been.
Whoa! That’s me, the giant! Hi David! Just checking in on your blog, looking to share resources with our teachers here in Pender County, NC, and thought, “Hey! I know that guy!” And yes, I love the EeePC. I think it’s “out-of-the-box” configuration is ideal for pushing folks to utilize Web-based Apps and open-source software. I’d like to see us start offering them to teachers in our system with the stipulation: “You can’t put Windows on it!” Sometimes dangling a carrot (the laptop itself) is helpful when pushing innovation (the Web 2.0/Collaboration software installed).
This makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. Often when I try to start a conversation with a teacher about blogs, they say “what?” They don’t think they have time to set it up once they are on their own.
Diane,
I like your suggested lesson outline for the ideal conference session. I think I’ll include your ideas into my next workshop.
I completely agree! I think this hands on time is exactly the missing piece educators need! Often we sit through great sessions with wonderful new tools and ideas, but haven’t had the time to try it out. So, by the time we get back to our classrooms, we tend to continue to do the same old, same old! Just as the students need lots of hands on, “try it out” time, to solidify new ideas and grow those dendrites, educators are no different. I hope conference organizers will consider this wonderful shift! 🙂