Friday, November 09, 2007

EdubloggerCon 2008: The Collaborative Conferences

Last year's EduBloggerCon in Atlanta, the all-day meet-up of educational bloggers, was a really fun event. EduBloggerCon and the NECC "Bloggers Cafe" were watershed events in some ways--the physical gathering of educational bloggers and the real-time conference collaborating and communication helped to raise expectations about ed tech conference participation. Whether they led, mirrored, or followed (maybe a little of each) the dynamic changes in networked learning that are taking place in the world of Web 2.0 for educators, they definitely generated an excitement about gathering and learning together.

So it is great fun to announce that we'll be having EduBloggerCon meetings in both Palm Springs (California) and San Antonio (Texas) in 2008, with the great and appreciated support of CUE and NECC. CUE, in fact, is sponsoring a whole series of Web 2.0-style additions to their conference (including a cool social network) which I'll be posting about shortly--and EduBlogger Con "West" will be Wednesday, March 4th, 2008, in the Palm Springs Convention Center in Palm Springs, California. NECC is also graciously hosting again, and the mothership EduBloggerCon 2008 will be Saturday, June 28, 2008 in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. Both events will, of course, be free, and maybe we'll even get a sponsor who'd be willing to swing for lunch (anyone?).

The wiki pages at www.EduBloggerCon.com for both events will be up shortly, and we'll follow the pattern of letting anyone propose discussions they want to facilitate, and others indicating their interest levels in those discussions. And we'll build in ample time for informal discussions. While we've called this an "unconference" before, I think it's really better identified as a "collaborative conference," and hope that you will consider joining us!

4 comments:

  1. Steve,
    Thanks for your hard work on this! I enjoyed "observing from home" last year. Blogging is not my strength, but will help in any way I can! Let me know!

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  2. So, are you "observing" again this year, or will you be able to be there?!

    I'm glad you brought up the blogging thing. I don't think anyone needs to feel that they have to be a blogger to come and be a part of the conversation. It's probably more attractive to the edubloggers to be there, but I'm hoping that lots of the folks in Classroom 2.0 (www.classroom20.com) and other educational social networks will come, as they are significant contributors to the global discussion as well.

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  3. Last year was a blast in Atlanta. I hope to make it for this year's event at NECC as well. Any one talking about a meet up at TCEA? I'm hoping to be there as well.

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  4. Anonymous11:34 PM

    For anyone on Twitter, I've created a twitter account called necc2008. My goal is to have it automatically grab all snippets of news feeds from blogs, photos, videos, and wikis with tags connected to NECC 2008. This might be a cool way to view a live "news ticker" of the conference. Follow NECC2008 this year.

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