The EdBlogger Meet Up at NECC was a success – and a blast. I think thanks go to Will Richardson for posting the idea, David Jakes for suggesting the location, Steve Hargadon for creating the wiki (and the support blogging buttons – here’s mine), and all the participants for using the wiki and, well, participating.
I got to meet and talk with a lot of people I’d been wanting to meet face-to-face for sometime, including Will Richardson, David Warlick, and Adam Frey (of wikispaces). (This picture is Adam, Will, and I). I also got to meet David Jakes, Jeff Utech, Janice Stearns (from LAUSD), and many many others. (Here’s an image of Warlick standing behind Janice, Jakes, and Jeff – Warlick was taking pictures, too – with the coolest phone I’ve ever seen).
It’s funny. I left my bag at the hotel when I walked there and forgot to reload my business card holder before leaving. I was bummed I wouldn’t be able to hand out my new cards, but in the end I’m bummed I didn’t get to trade with people and bring home a stack of cards as reminders of everyone I met… and their blog address. I hope they all add their links to the wiki.
Here is an OPML file of everyone who has added their link so far (I’ll update this as time goes by – I’m subscribed to the changes at the wiki):
EdBloggerMeetUp.opml (UPDATED: 07/09/06 9:09am)
My OCDE colleagues Ranjit Mayadas and Stacy Deeble-Reynolds crashed the party. They’re not blogging (yet), but it was great to see them. (See Ranjit, and many edbloggers in this image.) Also, I was glad to see Courtney Peagler again before she left the conference. Now that we’re linking to her, she’ll have to start blogging again. ;)
The next morning Will called this the largest meet up of educational bloggers ever. I’m glad I was there. The conversations that happened there – and the connections made – were among the highlights of the conference for me. Perhaps the best thing to come out of it was the suggestion (in the comments of Will’s post) that we organize an edblogger conference. I suggested something similar (including elements of Dave Winer’s Hypercamp concept) a few months ago, but timing wasn’t right, as everyone was hard at work trying to get the online conference rolling. I’m sure it will be some time yet before we’re all ready, but I’m looking forward to it and am ready to contribute when the time comes.
Meanwhile, we’ve got our work cut out for us…
Thank you to everyone who was there for a fun evening.