How effective are education technology conferences?
July 14, 2008
With NECC 2008 winding down, I thought it would be appropriate to post my opinions on education technology conferences.
Last year, I felt that Florida Education Technology Conference (FETC) was significantly better than NECC. But most education technology conferences are afflicted with the same problem: they are targeting the wrong people with the wrong ideas.
While I was not able to attend NECC this year, I suspect that I would have been as disappointed as Will Richardson:
But for me, at least, at the end of the day, I’m still left wondering, “what’s really changed?” And, where will we be a year from now?
NECC is the echo chamber writ large and in living color; more than any other conference, it’s where we feel “big.” But the reality of it is, as Dean suggests, the powerful learning that most of us experience in these online communities is still little more than a blip on the radar screen. (I wonder what percentage of the 8 million+ educators in this country are aware of these shifts on a basic level.)…
And I think it’s time we get serious about all of that. No doubt, the vendor floor in Washington will be filled with “Web 2.0 in a Box” and “Safe Social Networking” and control, control, control. And I’m going to guess that, like this year, “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts” will be “Hot Topics” as well as a few other new tools. And we’ll be talking once again about new standards and 21st Century Literacies and all of that. But while we as a community have no control over some of that, is that what we aspire to? Is that what we want the emphasis on NECC 09 to be, once again? Or do we want it to be more?
I hope it’s more. More about learning and figuring out what it means to be connected. More about what we can do to begin systemic change. More tangible, non-toolsy, results oriented thinking. More models that work, models that provide realistic options for educators to wrap their brains around.
These are an incredibly insightful comments.
The echo chamber of education technologists reinforcing each other’s beliefs is not the most effective way to drive change in the education sector.
NECC and other big-name education conference are an extremely expensive venue to share ideas about collaborative tools, Web 2.0, and professional learning communities. Remember, we are living in the age of free.
The educators at NECC represent above-average wealth districts who can afford to send people to education technology conferences to learn about the latest technology. Is this what our emerging leaders in education technology should be investing their money in?
I believe that potential attendees should be investing their time and money into educating neighboring districts about online technologies and collaborative communities.
Social, participatory, online communities require user adoption. As Dean Shareski points out, only a small sliver of the educational community is participating in online communities. There will be greater impact, a more vibrant social community, and less expenses by technology leaders investing in educating their neighboring districts as opposed to attending fancy conferences.
We need a new approach to encouraging systematic change in the education sector and conferences are not the answer.
Update: University of Akron Professor, and OETNer, Jeremy Brueck, has posted his reflections on NECC 2008.
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