This was my first time at an ISTE/NECC conference and I was at times amazed and overwhelmed.  It was the biggest and best conference I have every been to.  Over 18,000 people attended. One of the best parts of the few days for me was meeting people that I have “met” online through their blogs or twitter.  Sue Waters who does Edublogs  and lives in Australia was there and it was great to meet and talk to her.  I also met Amanda Marrinan who teaches a grade 2 class -also in Australia.  I met Kathy Cassidy who has a grade 1 blog and lives in Saskatchewan, Canada. I met these people and many more at the “Blogger’s Cafe”, an area set aside for people to hang out, meet up and make connections.

This is where I met Steve Hargadon from Classroom 2.0 and Learn Central. I often listen to Classroom 2.0 Elluminate sessions on Saturdays. People from around the world join online to learn new things about technology. They are always interesting. More than a year ago I met Jane Kraus on Classroom 2.0. She is an IT person in Oregon and had posted a discussion on Classroom 2.0 that she was looking for classes that were learning about butterflies. I responded and we eventually did a skype call at school. It was a thrilling first experience for me and my grade 2 students. Her picture is at the end of this Animoto. I didn’t realize she was at NECC this year and I was disappointed that I didn’t meet her. I wanted to include her picture because she is the one who inspired me to attend the conference. As you’ll see in the animoto you might recognize Steve Dembo, Ken Shelton, Lisa Parisi, Susan Van Gelder(from LEARN), Kevin Honeycutt, Wes Fryer and Angela Maiers. I also met Donelle O’Brien who I now follow on twitter and hope to learn from her as well as the others I follow on twitter.

Below is an Animoto of my experiences meeting people – one if not the best part of this conference.

I tried to go to as many sessions as I could.  Often I passed up eating as there was so much to see and do. I went to sessions on Podcasting, Comic Life, Classroom Learning Stations, and Top Ten Tools for K-3 (Gail Lovely). Check out her All the Best wiki. I went to sessions on Building Your Personal Learning Network and how Twitter is a great and powerful way to do this. Steve Hargadon did a session on Building Your Own Social Network. He showed how to do this. First, join Ning which is an online service that let’s you join social networks or create your own. I also went to a discussion on Global Collaboration through the Flat Classroom Ning.

While going through the exhibits I was lucky enough to meet a Smartboard trainer named Obe Hostetter who gave me some coaching and smartboard resources.

O.K. I’m really sorry it’s taken me so long to write a reflection on NECC09. It was really hard to put my experiences into words. I hope to go again though probably not next year. My 40th High School reunion will be in La Jolla, California this same weekend next year. In 2010 ISTE (as it will be called) will be in Philadelphia and I hope to talk some of my colleagues from school into coming with me.

Museum by dumpr.net