Educational Insanity

I blogged.

About NECC.

For the fine folks at Dell.

Check it out there.

There’s a bit of irony that I’m writing this given that Scott McLeod got on my case this morning for having my head in my Blackberry too much.  I’m glad he did that.  Here’s why…

I’m disconcerted that we’re here at Edubloggercon ‘09 which is billed as an unconference where conversations happen.  The goal is to stand in contrast to NECC proper where there are formal sessions with (usually) presenters speaking to the audience.  Yet, even in the smaller breakout “conversations” here at EBC, there are more heads in the machines having conversations in the backchannel(s) than there are having face-to-face conversations.  I would take a picture, but I don’t want to “out” anyone.

I’m all in favor of backchannels…in the right place(s) at the right time(s).  If I wanted to chat online with the folks here, I could have stayed at home.  Additionally, if I were facilitating a discussion among a really large group of people, I might encourage a backchannel there.  But, I came here to have meaningful, face-to-face, real conversations about real issues in education.  Fortunately, I’m finding those in small pockets off to the side; I’ve had a few really meaningful conversations and it’s only 11:30.

But, I hope others join me this afternoon in using this particular opportunity, Edubloggercon, to get our heads out of the machines and to look each other in the eyes and to engage in “real” conversation.

I attended CoSN’s annual conference in Austin, TX this week.  I’m glad I went, though my impressions from the conference are mixed.

What I liked about the CoSN conference:

• Serious - the overall tone/climate of the event is, IMHO, very serious.  I mean that in a good way.  The tone stands in stark contrast to some of the larger conventions that long ago crossed the line of professionalism.  There were  no costumes or gaudy theme decorations at this conference, thankfully.
• Location – the weather in Austin sucked.  That said, I’d always wanted to go to Austin and the little of it I saw was appealing.  I’m sick of the Orlando, SF, New Orleans conference scenes.  This was a nice change for me.
• Focus – there were a few sessions that were about tech. tools and/or pedagogy, but there was definitely more of a focus on bigger policy issues.  I’m cool with that.
• Opening keynote – though he seemed a bit cranky, I thought Don Tapscott’s presentation worked.  I’ve not read any of his books, but I like that he writes and speaks from evidence.  He’s done the research necessary to make the claims that he does. [NOTE: I had to leave before the Christenson/Horn keynote, so I don't know how that went.]

And, here’s what I didn’t like:

• Facility – the conference used the 4th and 6th floors of a Hilton hotel.  That was fine, but there were very few spaces to sit outside of the rooms.  The hallways were long and wide spaces that didn’t lend themselves to convening and chatting.  It just felt cold and lonely in the facility.   Also, without an air card, wireless Internet access cost $10.95/day.  Not a huge expense, but tech. conferences should freely open the cloud to the attendees.
• Sessions – nothing meaningful can happen in 45-minutes. Just about every session I attended had to end abruptly and lacked speaker/audience interaction because the speakers took the whole time.
• Lack of diversity – this continues to infuriate me.  The attendees at this conference made the NECC crowd look like a rainbow and that doesn’t say much.
• Cost – this was an expensive event to attend.  On top of that, it seemed like there was a lot of nickle-and-diming going on.  When I heard that CoSN would be making the final keynote available on the Web on a pay-per-view basis, I nearly choked to death.

As usual these days, the real value of the conference was in the face-to-face conversations that happened before, between and after the sessions.  I met some of the folks in my Twitter network and a host of new educators.  And, most importantly, I had some real Texas BBQ!

This past weekend, I had a wonderful opportunity to lead a conversation/session at Educon 2.1.  I had planned a 20-25 minute presentation to be followed by small-group and whole-group discussions.  But, at the last minute, I decided to scrap the presentation part and let the folks in the room talk.  At the wiki developed for the session, you can see the premise of the discussion.  The conversations were really good, though we never really got beyond the first question.

Using my Tablet PC, I recorded some of the ideas that seemed to resonate with the folks in the room and that struck me as particularly interesting.  Here are those ideas:

Additionally, one of the attendees was using Inspiration to document the conversation at her table.  Here’s what she came up with:

I’d love to get your thoughts.  Please comment here and/0r (if you really want to be 2.0ish) add your thoughts to the wiki.

There’s been a slightly disconnected conversation within/across my learning network/environment about conferences, presentations, etc. At the risk of sending you away, here are some posts I’ve read:

• Dan Meyer blogged and Tweeted from and about ILC and was his usual critical (though I think constructively critical) self.
• Sylvia Martinez, I learned through her comments to Dan, had written a while ago about how conference presenters might be better selected.
• Ben Grey very recently wrote about the power of conferences.
• Then, today, David Warlick wondered if the availability of a Ning site along with pre-conference handouts would stop people from attending conferences.

Most of what I’ve been reading can be pretty well summarized thusly: conferences are important learning opportunities because the f-2-f conversations (especially the informal/unplanned ones) that happen are great, but, for the most part, the presentations suck.

That statement about sums up my experiences as well, especially at “academic” conferences (what a ridiculous distinction, BTW).

So, here I go thinking “out loud” about the sort of conferences I’d like to attend (NOTE: this thinking is mostly related to ed. tech. conferences, but many of the ideas are applicable to any sort of conference).  In general terms, if I could have read what you are going to present, I don’t need to hear and see you tell me what you’ve written.  Also, if you could have “delivered” your presentation by publishing it on the Web (see e.g. K12Online), you might want to re-think what you’re doing at the conference.  More specifically:

*No keynote or featured speaker presentations by anyone who has recently written a book. Along the lines of Dan Meyer’s “cover the stuff I can’t Google,” if I can read the book, I don’t need to sit and listen to you summarize it.

*More moderated panel discussions and/or point/counterpoint sessions. If I have to just sit there and listen, I’m much more inclined to listen to people speaking with each other spontaneously.  Wouldn’t you enjoy listening to a point/counterpoint with Gary Stager and…well…anybody and everybody?

*No more large-scale demonstration sessions (especially of the “How I used Google Earth in my classroom!” variety). In addition to the vendor exhibit halls (hey, someone’s gotta fund the conference and give away swag), have a massive project demonstration room.  Think Poster Session 2.0.  Allow me to walk around from booth to booth and to converse with the folks about their projects and to view their various (digital, print, etc.) project artifacts.  All I’d need ahead of time is abstracts of the projects and I’d know which booths I’d want to visit/explore and at least one or two beginning questions.  This, BTW, might also be a good place to involve students. If there were students at the booths to talk about their involvement in the projects, I’d love to talk to them about it and I think they’d be more comfortable in the more intimate setting than in front of hundreds of people at once.

*Figure out ways to facilitate discussion/conversations. For example, perhaps offer fewer but longer sessions.  Then, IF the person(s) assigned to lead the session choose(s) to make a presentation, he/she/they must leave equal time for discussion about the presentation.  Also, configure the rooms so that they are more suitable to discussion/conversations. If I have to stare at the back of people’s heads, you’ve lost me before the session even begins.

Essentially, I think those that organize conferences MUST figure out what they can do that either can’t be done online or that can be done better or differently f-2-f.  To that end, it seems to me that the root of the word “conference” is confer.  And, according to Dictionary.com, to confer means “to consult together; compare opinions; carry on a discussion or deliberation.”  That’s what I want to do at f-2-f conferences.  In 2009, I’m headed to Educon 2.1, VSTE, CoSN, AERA, NECC…think I’ll get what I want?

Any other thoughts on how to improve conferences?