Tag Archives: #macul14

Why you shouldn’t attend conference sessions

If you don’t live in Michigan this post may not be for you. On the other hand yeah it is.

Unsession that I "attended"

Unsession that I “attended”

So our big edtech conference MACUL was this past few days. I can’t really tell you much about the sessions I attended. There were some good ones, but I won’t remember them next year or even in a few weeks. What I will remember is all of the people I met.

Conferences for me have become all about meeting great educators and learning from them in conversations in the hallways. Even one session that I did attend on setting up gaming in your classroom while interesting did not leave me feeling ready to try it in my classroom. But I “knew” the presenter virtually and met her this weekend. So I tweeted and set up a meeting to get some help from her. Admittedly during her session I zoned out a bit (it was the last one of the day so I was beat) because I knew that I would just talk to her later in person.

I could go on and on about what I learned from conversations with people. I will keep it short by saying my main takeaway is that Michigan is full of great educators and many of them “live” under the hashtag #Miched. I have participated in the chat a few times and knew some of them but after this conference I am committed to being an active part of the #Miched community rather than a “driveby tweeter.”

If you are looking for community online I can not recommend a better group of people than #Miched! I love learning from people online, but it is so much more powerful when it is with people that you also get to know in face to face conversations.