What a whirlwind of a day! I can definitely say that my first EduBloggercon did not disappoint and it was so wonderful to have such a variety of conversations with such a wonderful group of educators.
My day at EduBloggerCon 2008 started with a session on filtering — which was perfectly in line with “I Read Blocked Blogs” week 
I felt that the content of this session was too vast for the time that was allotted and I wish we would have had more time to work our way through some of the ideas. While I understand that we do have a need for filtering some inappropriate websites, I think too often our filtering goes too far — often blocking sites that are valuable and valid websites for facilitating student learning. I strongly agreed with Steve Dembo’s comment that our filters are generally in place to protect the adults (from liability) more so than to protect the kids.
My second session was one facilitated by Wesley Fryer on Digital StoryTelling, and I really enjoyed this session. While it wasn’t as participative as I expected EduBloggerCon to be, it was still valuable for me to gain a deeper understanding of how digital storytelling can be a powerful learning experience for both the students and the adults.
I had an enjoyable lunch with Vinny Vrotny and some teachers from Arapahoe HS. We talked about a variety of topics and were able to share insights from the different morning sessions that we each sat through.
Folowing lunch I sat in on the If the Leader’s Don’t Get It, It’s Not Going to Happen session which was interesting but like the earlier session on filtering seemed to be too big to fit into the allocated time. I think the issue of leadership “understanding” is huge and should be something that we continue to discuss and wrestle with if we hope to be successful in our advocacy efforts.
The afternoon continued with the Web 2.0 smackdown session which was very fun — it was fun to learn about a wide variety of tools that other people enjoy using. The pace was fast, but the content was so interesting. Interestingly, I think that everyone agreed that the highlight of all of the tools was the very “non-tech” tool shared by Kevin Honeycutt — a keychain made of small cards, each of which had the URL of one Web 2.0 tool along with the name of one staff member who could help teachers use the tool in their classroom. It was such a simple idea — but yet, very effective. For me this speaks to the issue that it really is about the pedagogy more than just the tools. It starts with the basics — if we want teachers to integrate/incorporate more of this stuff in their instruction, then we have to make it simple and easy and we have to provide the support.
The final session of the day was mine on Designing the 21st Century School. The session started a bit slow — mainly I think because my intention was for it to be more hands-on and constructive, but at the end of the day everyone was suffering from overload and fatigue from such a full day of learning and rich discussions. Wesley Fryer stepped in and helped with facilitation and we eventually broke into two very productive groups focusing on brainstorming ideas for our ideal 21st Century School. The results from each group can be found here and here. I thank everyone who attended and contributed ideas!
My day ended with an incredibly enjoyable dinner with Scott McLeod, Kristin Hokanson, Wesley Fryer, Kevin Honeycutt, and several others. The dinner conversation was so rich and meaningful — we didn’t solve all of the problems of the world , but I think I can safely say that we were able to discuss very important issues and develop a deeper shared understanding of those issues.
I found myself frequently describing the day as sort of a “class reunion.” There were so many people that I met in person today that I felt were old friends. There were hugs and very warm greetings between so many of us who have never met in person, but yet know each other so well through our blogs, our wikis, and our Twitter messages. It really did feel like a gathering of old friends who haven’t seen in each in years. I have no precedent for this phenomenon that I experienced today, and perhaps that isn’t very important. Perhaps what is most important is that this very dynamic group of educators were able to come together today to discuss some really powerful ideas. Perhaps what is really important is that we are all many conversations and one day closer to the solutions we are seeking to the many issues we are facing in this “learning revolution.”
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Looked for you today but didn’t see you. Hope we’ll connect soon.
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I’m so jealous! It sounds like such a wonderful day – I look forward to reading more about your NECC adventures and meet-ups with the great educators there. I’m sitting home in WI, but maybe someday will be able to attend NECC – until then, I have you to bring me the news
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Hi Kate — This has been so much fun, but I do wish you were here too! Maybe next year…
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This is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you for summarizing the day so effectively (which makes me realize how much I am missing!) Next year in DC will be much easier for me.
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! (and please keep summarize blogging!) -
Stephanie: It was GREAT to meet you in person yesterday and visit both last night and today. I think these first two days of NECC have been like “GT pullout” in terms of getting together the innovators / early adopters.
I am sorry my digital storytelling session was not very participative. I was actually thrown by the room layout, I wanted people to circle up so we could dialog, but as others have noted the rooms were not setup for this. There were more people than I think we could comfortably have put into a circle in that space.
With hindsight, I could have come up with a group of questions and then asked different people to facilitate discussions about them. It is good to have a large, whole-group discussion however, but to do that more effectively I think we would have needed a wireless mic. Unfortunately a wireless mic was not available in the breakout room where we were. I did try to involve different participants, and was glad we had participation from others– I did learn about several new digital storytelling projects and tools like Sharing Hope and Seesmic which I hadn’t heard about previously.
I definitely agree that my session felt more like a traditional conference session than an unconference session. That blame lies with me, of course, and in large part my own inexperience with unconference events. I do think our dinner conversations last night and tonight were WONDERFUL, however, and from what others describe may be more like the “unconference experience” others had last year and were looking for.
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Wesley,
I agree that meeting in person and the conversations over dinner these past two nights have been wonderful!
Please don’t think that I didn’t find your session valuable! I sat in on it specifically because Digital Storytelling hasn’t been on my radar as much as other things and I was there to learn from you and others who have more experience — so the more traditional feel of it wasn’t necessarily a problem, it was just unexpected from my preconceived notions of what EBC would be.
I think we were all struggling with space and setup issues at EBC, and that will definitely be something we should put in our notes to address next year (or the next time we are all together).
I think I’ll be around the cafe quite a bit tomorrow so hopefully we will have some time to chat again
Take care,
Stephanie -
Looking back, I really wish I would have been there for EduBloggerCon. If I go next year, this will be a must attend for me.
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