Techlearning blog

I returned this week from the Learning 2.0 Conference, held in Shanghai, China, September 14-16. The opportunity to join 400 educators from around east Asia, primarily teachers and technology directors from International schools across the region, was a fantastic learning opportunity. Not only did my week in Shanghai open my eyes even wider to the reality of our “flat world” empowered by Internet connections and Internet-powered applications, but it also afforded a great chance to experience innovative ways to approach the entire “educational conference experience.” Here are a few of the things organizers of the Learning 2.0 conference did and continue to do which I think exemplify “best practices” for educational conferences.

Pre-conference use of social networking tools

Conference organizers set up and utilized a blog as well as a Ning site to generate interest and encourage conversations leading up to the conference. Each of the main conference presenters shared a blog post in advance of the conference about “what learning 2.0 means to them.” This allowed attendees registered for the conference as well as others interested in the ideas of the conference to mentally “gear up” for the event as well as refine their own expectations for the conference. The K-12 Online Conference is using “teaser videos” by presenters on its conference blog this year in a similar way to generate interest and encourage conversations prior to the actual conference.

Pooled resources for conference logistics

Three international schools in Shanghai, along with the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools (EARCOS) partnered together to organize and coordinate the Learning 2.0 conference. Individually, none of these organizations could have likely attracted and funded an event with a comparable speaker lineup and event schedule. Because these schools and organizations came together with a common purpose, however, they were able to leverage their combined resources and host a truly world-class learning conference. This pooling of resources and expertise represents “best practice” for educational conferences. The beneficiaries of this shared effort not only include the registered participants who physically attended the conference face-to-face, but hundreds of other educators around the world who were (and still are) able to access a great deal of content and ideas from the conference online for free.

In-conference use of social networking tools

During the actual conference, participants attending face-to-face as well as at a distance were encouraged to use both Twitter and the conference Ning site to share notes, links, reflections, and learning points. NECC 2007 was the first conference I’ve attended where Twitter was widely used informally by participants, and the dynamics of sharing via Twitter really are remarkable. During the opening panel discussion of Learning 2.0, TwitterCamp was running on a large screen in front of the audience and participants were encouraged to share both reflections and questions during the session. This permitted people sitting in the audience to actually pose questions “live” to the panelists, who could see those questions on the screen and respond if they wanted to. This took “interactive panel discussion” to a new level. Only a few people were able to ask questions of the panelists in “the traditional way” using the microphone, but many more were able to ask questions via Twitter. Many people were also able, during and after actual conference sessions, to post notes and reflections to the conference Ning site. These shared ideas are beneficial not only for participants, but for presenters as well. How often have you shared a presentation for students or other teachers and wondered what people actually “took away” from the session? I would love to see more educational conferences encourage “live blogging” using tools like Twitter and Ning in the way the Learning 2.0 conference organizers did.

In-conference use of “unconference” sessions

Several of the presenters at Learning 2.0, including Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, utilized an “unconference” approach to several of their sessions which was very effective. Sheryl shared a good post (“Making an Unconference Work for You”) during the actual conference which explained the philosophy as well as expectations of “unconference sessions.” Not every conference presentation topic is a good fit for an unconference approach, but many of the issues discussed at Learning 2.0 were. By inviting participants to actively contribute to discussions in conference sessions, the actual learning which took place at this conference was qualitatively and quantitatively better than many others I have attended. At NECC 2007, my best “learning moments” were in the edublogger lounge and in the hallways, talking with other attendees. At Learning 2.0, I enjoyed taking in a “traditional” session, but benefited even more from an “unconference discussion” facilitated ably by Will. The skill set required to comfortably facilitate a discussion is different from that required to simply present content and ideas to a passive audience. I hope we’ll see more explicitly “unconference” approaches to topics in more educational conferences in the future.

In-conference and post-conference sharing of presentation materials

If educational conference organizers are truly interested in helping share ideas and provide greater access to those ideas for educators, they need to provide asynchronous access to as many conference presentation materials and ideas as possible. Learning 2.0 organizers did this via YouTube-posted videos of the initial conference keynote panel discussion, and participants did this by posting (with permission, of course) recorded podcast audio of session presentations. (Examples are here, here, here, and here.) Next year, if the Learning 2.0 conference takes place again (perhaps in a different east Asian venue) I’d love to see even more conference sessions shared and archived as audio podcasts. Organizers of NECC 2007 did this to a greater degree last year. Hopefully we’ll see even more educational conference organizers follow suit.

Post-conference use of social networking environments

The Learning 2.0 conference Ning is currently transitioning from being a pre-conference and in-conference communication tool about the conference itself, to a post-conference social networking environment empowering educators to extend conversations and make direct connections between their students using web 2.0 tools. Even in a three day face-to-face conference, there is never enough TIME to hear all the sessions I want to attend and have all the conversations I want to have with attendees. By blending the opportunities for learning with social networking environments like Ning, conference organizers can deepen as well as extend opportunities for both learning as well as connections empowered by the conference experience.

There are probably more aspects to the Learning 2.0 conference which exemplified “best practices,” but those are some of the main ones that stood out for me. Whether or not you physically attended the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai, there are multiple opportunities for you to learn from the presentations and conversations which took place there. Meeting so many international teachers face to face made me look forward even more to the free, K-12 Online Conference coming up in October.

I’m scheduled to share a keynote address at the November TechForum in Austin, Texas, titled “So the World is Flat. Now What?” I’m continuing to compose my thoughts following my experiences in Shanghai this past week, but one of the clear takeaways is that in our flat world, educators need to directly connect more frequently with each other as well as empower students to safely and appropriately connect with each other. The Learning 2.0 conference was a catalyst for educational connections on many levels, and as such exemplified educational conference “best practices” in many ways.