This past weekend I participated in my first virtual conference. The Discovery Education Spring Virtual Conference was a free professional learning event for educators. Of course, virtual conferences are nothing new, they happen in many professions and there are numerous opportunities like the Global Education Conference and the Learning Revolution Conference. They are still new for many educators and, while I had heard of these events before, this was new learning for me.
A collection of observations:
- It was the first time that I gave a keynote presentation from my dining room table. It was wonderfully convenient but I also felt quite disconnected. Trying to passionately share my material speaking into my computer without any feedback from a live audience was challenging.
- The technology is good, but not perfect. Livestream, which hosted all of the presentations worked well, but there were some hiccups during the day making logging-in challenging. I also owe a huge thanks to Steve Dembo who assisted with setting me up for my presentation and was troubleshooting before and during the event. I found myself far more stressed about the technology than the content for the presentation.
- I was first up in the morning (6:00 a.m. on the west coast) and did ‘attend’ a variety of sessions throughout the day. I liked being able to start in one and if it wasn’t quite for me to leave and find another that was. There were a number of concurrent, live sessions participants could choose from at the event.
- I found that even though the sessions are archived immediately, I do like to see the live presentation. There is something about the shared experience of people, even if not face-to-face, all participating at the same time.
- The social elements make these events very powerful. Through an online chat on the host website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, there were amazingly rich conversations and sharing throughout the sessions. It was great to be able to connect over the #DENVirtCon hashtag.
- While it was somewhat of a lonely experience for me, I think part of the power of the event for many participants was the ability to conference across schools, districts, communities and North America to learn and engage with educators, and taking what they were learning online and processing it face-to-face. There were sessions being hosted in many locations. I think finding a way to make the online experience a blended experience (a mix of online and face-to-face) is key in making online learning experiences “sticky”.
And some conclusions:
- There are definitely some new models interfacing with professional learning. From Edcamps to TEDx events, to online conferences, these events are challenging the traditional conference format. I actually don’t know how long the traditional conference can survive. There is a place for events built on networking and connections, but those built around expert presentations where educators spend hundreds of dollars to sit in a large hotel events room may find it difficult to survive.
- I am blown away by how many passionate teachers will give up a Saturday for their own learning. I saw it this past weekend, also at EdCamp and a variety of other events.
- DENVirtCon featured presentations from across North America and largely, we are trying to do similar things. This may be a sweeping generalization, but the efforts we are making and the system we are aspiring to does appear to be similar in many areas — particularly, with an uber-engaged group of educators.
- I found DENVirtCon to be inspiring and I learned some things I can use this week — can’t ask for much more!
Here is a link to a video archive of my presentation and below are my slides:
cultureofyes.ca 
Sitting in my family room with coffee and the dog, listening to Chris Kennedy at 8:00 am CT on a Saturday morning: personalized learning par excellence.
Thanks Kevin – it was so nice to know I had my friends in Winnipeg up to watch. 🙂
Hi Chris,
I love this: “I think finding a way to make the online experience a blended experience (a mix of online and face-to-face) is key in making online learning experiences “sticky”.”
I believe that blended learning will soon be ‘invisible’ in that varying degrees of blended will be ‘just what we do’.
I also find your first point in your conclusions, about traditional conferences not surviving, quite interesting. Just today I was in a Twitter conversation with Donna Fry who said, “See the ‘spread’ of #educon and #unplugd12 conversations. Those f2f opportunities are important.”
Although the BIG bring-in-the-money-making-keynote-speaker kind of conferences may be fading out, small focused conferences like the very Canadian Unpluggd, and ConnectEdCa (Calgary Science School) conferences, as well as Educon out of Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy, seem to be essential for my current kind of learning. These are conferences where I meet people in my ‘network’ that I learn so much from… where I build a stronger bond with them.
I ‘knew’ Dean Shareski for 6 years before finally meeting him at Educon two years ago, and our f2f connection connects us even further. I also ‘met’ Darren Kuropatwa at the same conference. Donna Fry and Rod Lucier were met f2f at Unplugd12 and ConnectEdCa. Last week I did a google hangout with them, next week we will be doing a conference panel together.
Combined, I’ve known these 4 people for years and years, and although I have only spent hours with them face-to-face, those face-to-face opportunities have been very special and they have solidified our friendships and respect for each other.
Conferences are blended opportunities for my PLN… and I find them essential to my learning! 🙂
Nice Dave. I think blended is becoming invisible more quickly for our students learning than it is for our learning.
Your experiences are similar to mine – some of the strongest relationships I have professionally are ones that have started digitally, then moved to face-to-face and then have continued on digitally – really blended relationships.
Conferences are essential – as long as they are structured the right ways.
Love your recap. And so many of your points resonate with me as well. There are benefits to going virtual (being able to share your message across all of North America concurrently and economically), but you don’t get the same buzz that you do when you’re face to face. That’s why I really do love the blended approach.
Thanks so much for kicking off our day. You were the perfect way to get the event rolling and your energy really set the tone for the sessions that followed!
Thanks Steve – in seeing the comments from the sites across North America, it looks like this conference did a great job of using the power of digital but marrying it with the importance of relationships.
I look forward to participating again in the future.
Hey Chris, thanks for your post.
I agree, the times of the “2500 seat lecture hall in the basement of a hotel with the sage on the stage”-style conferences seem like they are slowly going to fade into extinction…or are they? I think these conferences still appeal to many, and my evidence is the fact that most of these types of conferences are still filled to near capacity. But I believe they still appeal to many, because they allow for a certain level of participation and/or commitment.
The style of conference that David refers to requires a different level of participation and commitment. And I believe that with schools and districts being highly cognizant of how best to spend dollars on professional development, the question that more people are asking prior to attending PD sessions is “what is the evidence that our teachers/admin/district staff will have learned something from this PD event?”. The edcamp style conference or conferences that are based in experiential, hands-on learning are starting to gain ground on traditional, lecture style productions for the hands-on approach.
If the evidence of learning at a conference is simply a t-shirt, bag, or lanyard that signifies that we were present along with a few scant notes in a notebook with a corporate logo on the front, I myself am becoming less interested in attending or sending people to such events. However, if participants are required to actively participate, network, and create a product that can be brought back to a school or district? Now I’m in.
Two cents.
It is interesting Cale. As we focus on how we want to increase student engagement in their learning, we don’t make the same commitment in our own learning. I am with you – face-to-face events can be great if they are built around connections, sharing and relationships.
It is funny how we hold onto some old traditions like collecting artifacts from conferences as a symbol that we were there and must be better for the experience.