For almost two decades I have been attending ( and enjoying) educational conferences. I get to learn amazing things, explore new topics, connect with people, and see the live presentations of writers who have influenced my work. Yet, what I experienced at this year's Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s 2009 annual conference was far more powerful than attending good sessions and putting names with faces.
The experience at ASCD brought the brightest minds from the Offline-publishing world and the brilliance of the on-line Edusphere creating an amazing atmosphere of learning and discovery. Angela Powell at the The Cornerstone Blog describes the experience in this way:
ASCD embodied the theme of Learning without Boundaries by inviting a group of Edubloggers, Tweeters, and Social Networkers to extend the conversation far beyond the walls of the convention center. We embraced the opportunity by blogging, live- blogging, tweeting, Ustreaming, uploading, recording and sharing our learning experience wth the following Web2.0 Tools:
- Twitter - Do a Twitter search on the #ascd or #ascd09 hashtags and you'll find all our Tweets
- Blogs: Our thoughts, reflections, and learning were shared on our blogs and in real time: Chalkdust 101, Angela Maiers, In Practice, Ecology of Education, The Cornerstone Blog, Principal Reflections
- Wikis: We collected our work and session notes to share with you on Admins. & Web 2.0, DI & Web 2.O, and educators embracing MySpace and here on Google Docs
- Live Streaming- in case you missed a session like this one on Gaming & Learning
- And just generally putting their resources and presentation materials online: Ten Things to Do With a Laptop, Data Data Everywhere, Engaging Young Learners with Web 2.0
And, that was just the start of the conversation. The rest of the network joined in, actively participating virtually. Check out how the conversations continued here:
For many speakers and participants our presence at ASCD was new. Lots of questions about this"Web 2.0" stuff — Is it a fad? What are you doing this for? What do you mean you sent a "Tweet" – were common place. Yet, excitedly, we all noticed and concurr with Eduflack's Pat Riccards:
I am so grateful for this amazing experience and for the fantastic network of people I learn from and grow with every day- here we are meeting for the very first time at our ASCD TweetUp:
Photo from ASCD Conference Daily
