Since I have never attended NECC or EduBloggerCon I wasn't too sure what happens that day. I kept hearing that EduBloggers meet up and talk. I had heard about the Web 2 Smackdown, but that was only a 45 minute session in a day-long event. I didn't realize that I could have attended the event as it was happening via Elluminate. So I've been looking at EduBloggerCon's wiki and reading the information available there. The wiki did have a nice list of blog posts by attendees, however, you now have to go to Technorati's search for edubloggercon. Lots more to go through now. I did find a blog post by Alice Mercer here which gave me some background information that was very helpful. After reading Alice's thoughts about the sessions she attended and reviewing her CoverItLive blogging I began to understand the happenings at EduBloggerCon.
The is an event attended by educational bloggers and members of the EduBloggersWorld ning. Anyone can participate, even those who are not technology gurus.
The only qualifications needed to participate in our community are;
a desire to improve teaching and learning,
a desire to improve community among educators worldwide, and
a connection with blogging is desireable, be it past, present or future.
The event is, basically, a venue for conversation. Not just any conversation, but those that are designed to share best practices or explore a problem. Leading questions are suggested like these. Anyone can volunteer to lead a discussion about a topic of interest. Here are the discussions that took place. (Scroll down below the picture)
The Web 2 Smackdown 2009 was a session with lots of great information! There is a UStream.tv video that shows the presentors from a distance with the moderator walking in and out of view. The audio portion is great, though. I found that I could listen and view the CoverItLive blog at the same time. Of course, that was after I found an absolutely wonderful blog post by Scott McLeod here with all the people and tool/s presented. It goes really fast and the live blogging doesn't always keep up with the audio. So I had the video playing, read the CoverItLive blog, and referred to Scott's post as needed.
- I thought that FreshBrain's Virtual Summer Technology Camp offered free to anyone was a great find. There are 8 different paths with learning activities that can take 1/2 - 2 days to complete. Check it out now, cause it's only available until August 14th.
- I really like the idea of Woot. It's an online store, however, they sell only one item a day until it's sold out.
- The K-12 Online Conference 2009 will take place in December instead of October. And something new this year will happen on the Saturday following each week The presentations will be played live on UStream.tv and EdTechTalk will provide a backchannel discussion forum.
- Keep iTunes library on external hard drive was very helpful.
There were 19 people that participated in the Smackdown and I only mentioned a few that I found interesting. Check it out for yourself and see what catches your interest.
If I was still an active teacher librarian, I would definitely attend ISTE & EduBloggerCon 2010 It's in Denver next year, June 26-30th.
edubloggercon
web2_smackdown
necc2009
Turbo Tagger
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