Milobo’s Musings

I’m finally getting a chance to sit and reflect on FETC 2009 (the Florida Educational Technology Conference). As usual, there were way too many great choices on how to spend my time and way too few minutes in a day to do them all.  I presented on Thursday with Colleen Glaude and Katie Morrow on “Creating a PLN with Web 2.0 Tools” and even with the power outage that caught us just as we were getting started, we had a great time. I took notes in the other sessions I attended in GoogleDocs and posted my learning as part of the Scholastic TechTutors blog if you’re interested in finding out more.

One of the reasons I love attending conferences is the chance to see in person all the people I learn with virtually through websites like Classroom 2.0, ALI, Twitter, Plurk and more.  It’s also an opportunity to catch up with my fellow Florida Apple Distinguished Educators.  This year was especially exciting because of the number of interactions that began solely because of tools like Twitter and Plurk:

• I got to see Michelle Olah (HolaOlah), a Spanish Teacher at Teague Middle School in Altamonte Springs, Florida give her presentation. Michelle does some amazing things with Web 2.0 tools in her classroom and it was great to see the examples she shared. During the presentation, I sat with Sylvia Tolisano and learned even more.
• I met Cathy Baker (CathBaker) and was able to help in her quest for an iPhone charger.
• I met the tag team Jeff Richardson and Suzan Brandt, two Tech Integrators from Hoover, AL who created a wiki to share their learning from FETC.
• I got to spend some time with the Tech Integrationists Alicia Eslinger, Sonda Burckhard, and Judy Walter who work with Craig Nansen in Minot, ND.
• I listened to and learned from EduBloggers Lee Kolbert, Steve Dembo, Dean Shareski, Tom Turner, Jerry Swiatek and more during an informal Edublogger meetup after hours.
• I even got a ride to our hotel from Gordon Shupe, who just happened to notice my tweet about when we’d be arriving in Orlando.

Sadly, though, there just wasn’t enough time for the in-depth conversations I was craving.

On the way home, I did a lot of thinking about the traditional type of conference model that FETC represents and how I’d like to see it evolve.  While at FETC, many others were gearing up for learning at EduCon 2.1 in Philadelphia. EduCon is an example of how professional conferences can evolve into more than a “sit and listen” event, but I wonder how we can support the need for volume events for thousands of educators (FETC regularly hosts between 7,000 and 14,000 educators) and the need for interaction and conversation.

If I could make some suggestions to the FETC planners, here are three takeaways that I’d like to share:

1. Ditch the bags. I’m a teacher. I have enough conference bags in my closet to last more than a lifetime.  But that’s not the reason I want to see them go.  To me, the canvas bags are an invitation to collect paper: paper handouts from sessions, brochures and catalogs from vendors…you get the picture.  If we want to model digital literacy, how about giving each participant a conference web page instead? On that page, we could create a schedule of the sessions we want to attend and the vendors we’re interested in talking to.  Then, as we attend sessions, we could take notes directly on our web page or add links to vendor information for followup. Participants could link to one another and share notes, start conversations and plan meetups.  Which brings me to my next request.
2. Create a place for conversations. Give up a couple of the conference rooms and turn them into conversation rooms instead. Put in some groupings of comfy chairs and several round tables.  Put in some power ports so we can recharge our laptops between sessions. You could even designate particular rooms to specific conversations (a 1:1 room, a Web tools room, a video production room, etc).  Don’t worry about putting someone in charge of leading the conversation, or moderating a larger group discussion; that’s called a Panel session and it’s already available. Just give us a place to let our own conversations evolve.
3. Give time for reflection and internalizing. There’s nothing worse to me than becoming engaged and excited in a topic and then having to make a choice – do I run to the next interesting session that starts in 15 minutes or do I skip it in order to put some of my thoughts down in writing or to discuss them with others?  There’s got to be a way to mix time for learning with time for reflection and discussion.

Those are my thoughts.  What are yours?