Did I ever imagine that one day I would be sitting at a desk in USA writing a blog post? NOPE!
Yet, according to Google Maps, I’m currently about 14, 816 miles from my home (Perth, Western Australia). Fortunately I didn’t follow Google Maps directions and kayak across Pacific Ocean from Australia through Japan to get here!
Purpose of my trip was to attend NECC 2009 (one of the World’s largest conferences for Ed Tech professionals). This year over 18,000 people attended. Those following The Edublogger’s USA Adventure… to NECC and Beyond! have been asking me what the conference was like so here goes!
The Sessions
Many of my Australian friends would love to know how the NECC sessions compared to Australian conferences. Unfortunately this is where I go sorry! I only attended two sessions, both of which were keynotes, neither did anything for me.
There were several reasons why I didn’t attend sessions. I was representing Edublogs at NECC; I knew I could watch recordings of NECC sessions and read blog post reviews later.But most importantly, a fact that people don’t appreciate, is I’m quite isolated living in Perth (costly 5 hour flight to most conferences just in Australia).
I don’t have many opportunities to meet and network with others f2f. NECC may have been my one opportunity to ever meet a people who I network with online f2f as there is no guarantee I will ever get a chance to visit USA again. Creating stronger connections with people, by interacting f2f, in my view long term provides greater opportunity for learning than any session you can attend.
Biggest NECC Takeaways by Others
Looking for reflections by others? Check out survey results of other people’s biggest takeaways from NECC09. Or if you attended NECC, either in person or virtually, add your own reflections using this form.
Thanks to Alice Barr for creating this document which I will use to guide my viewing of NECC session recordings!
What I did At NECC
Most of my time at NECC was spent at:
- Bloggers Cafe (a casual space set up for people to connect with each other)
- and NECC unplugged (NECC’s unconference area where any one who wants can present to both f2f and virtual global participants).
I really enjoyed presenting at NECC Unplugged and plan to follow up with a later post on it.
Majority of my time was spent networking with others. Too many people, and too many stories to mention, but the slideshow below contains photos of most those I met. Definitely existing connections through blogging and twitter enhanced these f2f interactions.
The Edublogger Shirt
For those unaware I has a shirt custom made for me by Paul Morris (CheekyTeez in Perth) with design input from Gary Barber.
The idea of the shirt was to fit with the beginners series I faciliate for Classroom 2.0 and followed the same theme of badges we organised for NECC.
In a crazy Sue moment I decided to use one of the shirts as a sovenior by getting people I meet at NECC to sign the shirt. I’m hoping now poor Paul (or anyone) can figure out how I might frame it to keep as the souvenior.
Here is a photo of my favorite blogger signing my shirt!
The Exhibitor Hall
WOW! What can I say about the Exhibitor hall? It was massive!
Felt like the size of a football oval and had to be seen to believed.
Lots of NECC posts were critical of the exhibitors hall however I think Alfred Thompson’s Sponges and Participants post is a reminder to Edubloggers about the needs of different types of conference participants.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks to everyone that I meet at NECC! I enjoyed every second (except for all my misadventures on US air planes). I will follow up later with some USA reflections in later posts.
Extra special thanks to James Farmer for giving me the opportunity to attend NECC!
- For those that attended NECC — would love to hear about what aspects you enjoyed the most?
- For those who attended NECC unplugged through Elluminate – what was it like? What was the best aspects? The most challenging aspects?
Feel free to also any questions about what USA is like to an Australian 🙂
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