I hosted my own conference this week and approximately 18,000 people attended #edchat #iste11

Last summer I wrote a post about the emergence of new and emerging types of conferences for teacher professional development. In that post I mentioned the unconference, the online conference, and the edubloggercon but I also proposed the idea that with the plethora of great presentations and keynotes available online that people could curate their own conferences online by collecting links to and embeds of these resources on their own wiki or blog. In fact, many people have done this time and again but usually we don't think of these collections as conferences. Today I would like to propose another approach.

This week, at the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, we had the formal conference, the ISTE Unplugged sessions, and Edubloggercon but there was also another conference going on there, one few people knew about, one I silently hosted. On yellow post-it notes I printed QR codes that linked to great talks, presentations, and keynotes addressing a wide range of education and technology issues that I would liked to have seen at the ISTE conference. Drawing inspiration from street artists like Banksy and Space Invader I posted these post-it notes all over the convention center on conference signage, pillars, walls, doors, tables, etc. One could get an entirely different conference by walking around the convention center and scanning these QR codes.


I have no way of knowing exactly how many people scanned these QR codes, the technology seemed to saturate the conference and I really didn't see many people scan any of these things. I also admit that I find the whole QR thing somewhat annoying but I couldn't think of a better way to subversively host my own conference at ISTE. So, in a way, I can now say that I hosted my own conference of which approximately 18,000 educators were in attendance.

So, here are a few examples of some of the presentations from my underground ISTE conference:

Hamline 2011 Teaching and Technology Institute & Edcamp Minnesota - July 6th

Press Release:

You’re invited to a Teaching and Technology Institute at Hamline University. This FREE professional development event is co-sponsored by East Metro Integration District 6067 and Hamline University School of Education. Connect, collaborate, and share technology integration ideas with colleagues.

Wednesday, July 6

8:00am – 3:30pm

Klas Center, Hamline University St. Paul campus

Event information: http://2011huedtechinstitute.wikispaces.com/

A team of teaching professionals from East Metro Integration School District along with a selection of presenters from around the state will facilitate the exchange of knowledge, strategies, techniques, and tools for technology integration and fostering continued personalized professional development. Featured presenters include Molly Schroeder (Edina), Sean Beaverson (Bloomington), and Jen Anderson (West Saint Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan), who is leading the new 1:1 iPad program at Heritage Middle School. This is a BYOL (bring your own laptop) event!

Did we mention it’s free? Optional graduate credit and administrative clock hours are available. Space is limited to 80 participants; registration via Hamline’s website is required.

Collaboration Convention & unConference MSP 2010

Over the past few months I have had a number of conversations on Twitter with educators from MN, WI, and IA about holding something like an Edcamp or Educon event in our region. Events like these which are described as unConferences have come to be an emerging phenomena in recent years and a growing trend. However, no one has organized an unConference for educators in our region and the discussion has always been, "We should get something started..." but then it never happens. People get busy and no one ever gets around to taking the reigns and leading such an initiative.

Well, someone did finally take the initiative and finally organized an unConference in St. Paul, MN this November 11th-13th (thanks Jill!). The event is called the Collaboration Convention & unConference MSP 2010 and will be focused around the topics of education, collaboration, web 2.0, and connective learning. I am happy to be involved with this event and think it will be a worthwhile experience for all who attend. Registration is open. Click here for more information.