This is a very special Friday for TWIOE. Last week, the 2013 ECOO Conference happened. Since that time, there certainly has been a great deal of buzz about the conference on Twitter. Equally as exciting, folks have been blogging their perceptions. As I run across them, I’ve been tucking them it specifically for this post. My Tagboard for #ECOO13 has been invaluable!
Enjoy the messages – for those who attended, I hope that it brings back private reflections. For those who didn’t attend, you’ll get a chance to see what you missed. Hopefully, you’ll put this into your Annual Learning Plan and join the gang next year.
It was real pleasure to meet Colleen Rose in person. She was also my captain for the Photowalk and helped me a great deal with night photography. Her post is full of pictures from the event, reflections on keynotes and sessions she attended and a summary of the session that she and Jenni Scott-Marciski led. I did take a moment to watch their presentation but couldn’t stay for its entirety. I hope they post their resources.
This was a pre-cursor for the conference for me. The only session that I got to see from beginning to end was my own!
post #ecoo13 where do we go from here?
Inspired by incoming president Mark Carbone’s Call to Action, Paul McGuire shares for the world what his next steps will be now that the conference is over. I hope that he takes pictures when he talks about making the rest of the year a Minds on Media session!
Does Anyone Watch Cooking Shows for the Spatula? An ECOO Reflect
With a title like that, you’ve just got to read the post. Jason Richea distills his attendance at the event and identifies five takeaways for him. I couldn’t agree more than with #3 – Wifi Is As Important As Electricity.
Tweetwood Mac Live at Niagara Falls
Take a moment to enjoy a video of the Grand Finale when Tweetwood Mac took the stage after Kevin Honeycutt’s keynote.
Monday Morning Mirror – Reflections on #ECOO13
We can’t forget that conference attendance is a terrific opportunity to make and sustain learning friendships. Brian Smith confirms this and writes ” ECOO feels like a homecoming of sorts, and getting to meet, talk and move forward, makes for a very rewarding 2 days.”
My Favorite take home from ECOO13
This was among my favourites as well. I’d never seen a 3D printer in action and I have my own 3D ECOO logo.
My last 2 days of PD at #Edifide and #ECOO13
It was inevitable that someone would create a Storify of the Twitter messages. Here is Harry Blyleven’s work.
At a PD Event, everyone has a favourite moment. Andrew Campbell shares meeting a young teacher who got up really, really early in the morning just to get there on time and the impact that it had on him. You’re going to feel good about our profession when you read this.
ECOO 13 ~ Reflecting on Learning
David Fife missed Kevin Honeycutt’s closing keynote because of a commitment to a PD event in London. But he did catch both Amber MacArthur and Jaime Casap’s messages and shared his thoughts. He invites you to share your own thoughts. He selects a best quote and a best video from the two. They’re not bad choices.
Aviva Dunsiger participated in both the Minds on Media event and the conference itself. Consequently, she has made some commitment to change. Read the post to see where her commitments lie.
In another post, Aviva tries to focus the conversation on things that really count. Of course, I don’t hang around in her circles so I can only make assumptions about the conversations she has. I’d like to think that we’ve gotten past the point of talking tools for the sake of talking tools. If you’re not applying them to what really counts, you’re just irrelevant.
Alison Bullock supplies some of the best guidance that I think we all say regularly “Give myself permission to fumble and drop the ball. Kids will think no less of me if I totally mess up a presentation, or accidentally erase files or links. They’ll laugh along with me if I start laughing first.” I think kids and their parents will appreciate the effort, even if there are challenges getting it right the first time.
“When Words Become Unclear, I Shall Focus With Photographs.” – Ansel Adams
Patti Henderson was another photowalk leader and her group actually caught up with Colleen’s. Patti correctly notes that not everyone learns the same way and draws us to consider imagery as an alternative. If we could all tell stories like she shoots pictures…
Brian Harrison marries The Beatles song titles with his direction of learning post conference. I liked his description of the keynote speakers as being “edgy” and Brian reminds us “Too many in our profession are not looking ahead to the place where our students have already arrived-and are still moving, and if we are not with them we cannot have an impact on them- and they need us now more than ever.“
I really appreciated the approach that Jeff Brown took with this post. Instead of a single post, he shared a link to a public Evernote document where he took notes for the individual sessions that he attended. It’s only when you leave a conference like this that you realize that you missed more sessions than what you attended. I felt I could get caught up just by reading.
Incoming ECOO president Mark Carbone had the opportunity to address the conference at the closing of #ECOO13. He shared his remarks to the group on his blog for those who missed it or for those who wanted to quote him in their own blogs.
- keep yourself in the role of the learner
- tell your story: be visible, live out loud, create value, leverage video and social media, reflect and blog
- stay connected
- consider frameworks such as the SAMR model as an ongoing change model
- consider the power of students teaching students through video
- nurture those around you
Donna Fry had a busy three days at the #ECOO13 conference. Her recent involvement with eLearningOntario meant working the workshop day and then she had the opportunity to participate in the other two days as a conference attendee. She focusses on Mark’s last point about nurturing those around you. It’s a good point; we all get better when we help each other.
The marriage of social media and face to face experiences was one of the foci of Brian Aspinall’s post. I think he’s right; you can’t live on one or the other. It’s only when they’re blended that you reap the biggest benefits. At the end of his post, he addresses a very important question for a school or a system that “isn’t all there yet”. Just how will your students, used to technology or a paperless classroom, success in a subsequent year when they go to a classroom that doesn’t have the same focus?
Eating the Napkins at the Buffet – Reflections on ECOO 2013
Well, I certainly hope that the napkins weren’t eaten. There was a tonne of good food instead. It really is a first world problem that your phone dies early because you’re tweeting so much! Look to this blog post for a summary of the key takeaways from the three keynotes. I guess if you’ve run out of power, you can always blog instead of tweet!
I’ve been a big fan of the “We Can See” project and have blogged about it a couple of times. Magdalena Front had the chance to attend a session led by Angie Harrison and Jocelyn Schmidt. Inspired, check out the YouTube video where she shares what she saw at #ECOO13. You do have to watch it all – you wouldn’t want to miss the Twitter fingernails.
Parent Communication and accessibility
Angie Harrison, another Photowalk leader, made an interesting connection at #ECOO13. She met with Karen Lirenman who had blogged earlier about adding a translation widget to her blog to faciliate communication with parents who might be more comfortable reading in a different language. While Google Translate may not be perfect, it’s a wonderful example of how to try to reach out. In the post, she gives kudos to the folks at Edublogs who helped her in the process.
My Many Attempts to the First Post…
The toughest blog post is the first one. It’s where you want to make sure everything is perfect, no spelling errors, you have a sense that someone actually wants to read your thoughts, …
Well, #ECOO13 was the tipping point for this blogger. She’s been sitting on her first post since August but ECOO inspired her to press the publish button. Hopefully, this is the first of a number of shares in education.
#ECOO13 Conference Reflections
Diana Maliszewski is probably the very first person that I know who shared a passion for Minecraft with me. I can’t remember when but I do remember her sharing her thoughts somewhere and I was in the audience. Isn’t that awful? At #ECOO13, she teamed up with a group of educators to show how the use of Minecraft ties to the Ontario Curriculum. In her blog post, she summarizes her entire conference experience nicely and gave three takeaways from each. I still can’t believe that she left the Minecraft LAN Party before it was over…
I wish that I had the time and the memory to do this. Diana followed up with a couple of posts sharing some of the connections that she made at the conference. They’re all going to be rock stars now!
Supporting e-Learning Students and Teachers in Small, Rural Schools – #ecoo13
I met Brandon Grasley when I spoke at an eLearning conference in Sudbury a couple of years ago. Since that time, he’s been a very valued individual in the list of folks that I follow. He has a unique insight that comes through in his posts, including this one about rural schools. He also indicated, when he introduced me, that I would spam people with news stories every morning! But it’s this sharing that keeps us all informed whether we’re isolated by rural settings or the reality of working in the big city but still separated from others. I’ll always have the happy memory from Sudbury of how all of those Northern Ontario folks get together and they’re all just friends even though they are separated by distance. Brandon’s post shares how this all works from his perspective with his schools.
Cathy Beach shares her thoughts about Kevin Honeycutt’s closing keynote and the important message about living out loud, be Google-able, and this can be so successful in making those important connections. So important. Even more important is that for this to be successful, you need to celebrate your mistakes and model that you can’t be an expert at every opportunity but at least you can be part of the conversation. That’s where the power starts.
Dwelling in the Possibilities: Reflecting on #ecoo13
I think that the final sentence from this post sums it nicely “Conferences like #ecoo13 provide an opportunity to connect, dialogue, and learn from one another; and we left energized and excited to continue the conversation, online.” I really enjoyed reading this post – another one summarizing a complete conference and thoughts of participants. Over and over the posts that I read focus on teaching and not just the technology of a particular session. This is getting it right and this post confirms it. The location at the Scotiabank Convention Centre was new for us all. Now that I’ve been there, quite frankly, I get a kick from looking at the pictures showing the locations from a participant’s eye.
Tim King is a gentleman that I look up to – literally and figuratively. He’s been good enough to provide me with lots to think about in his blog. He takes on many issues that many are either afraid to or hesitant to address. Attendance at #ECOO13 made him re-think his position about what he calls “branding of education“. It seems to me that the focus should be preparation of students to a future with all kinds of options and it sounds like he is right there with that. Kudos and I hope to see a picture with all those logos you make reference to, Tim.
Wow. Honestly, I can’t remember a time when it took me an entire week to write a blog post! Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to blog about their #ECOO13 experience. Co-chairing it with Cyndie Jacobs was a wonderful opportunity. As I said in my opening remarks from the stage, we were so thankful for everyone who followed us to Niagara Falls. The conference really grew in size but, until everyone showed up, we were so nervous about “What if you threw a party and nobody came?”
I don’t presume to state that this is the inclusive list of blogs that fell out but it is the sum of what I found and I thank those who took the time to share their thoughts. You’ll find my own posts, if you’re interested, by backtracking your way through this blog.
In the meantime, I’m delighted to have found new blogs to add to the Livebinder of Ontario Edubloggers. Please take the time to visit the blogs above and share your thoughts on their reflections from the conference. I’m sure that they would love to hear from you. If I missed your post, my apologies. Please add a link to your own comments so that we can all enjoy them.
Related articles
- This Week in Ontario Edublogs (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- Day 3 at BringITTogether #ECOO13 (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- Day 2 at BringITTogether #ECOO13 (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- The Learning Space at #ECOO13 (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- Powerful Addresses at #ECOO13 (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- Who Do You Want to Meet at #ECOO13? (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- This Week in Ontario Edublogs (dougpete.wordpress.com)
- We Can See…at ECOO13 (upfrontandcentre.wordpress.com)
- ECOO 2013 Reflections (brownwpk.wordpress.com)
- Minds on Media at #ECOO13 (dougpete.wordpress.com)
doug --- off the record 
Thanks for including my post here, Doug! I always enjoy reading this post of yours each week. It amazes me how with just this post, you manage to bring so many bloggers together!
Now I’m off to read some blog posts! 🙂
Aviva
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Hi Doug;
It’s always an honour being included in your roundup of Ontario Edubloggers. This is another chance for me to personally thank you for the gazillion hours you put into making this conference a success. After the fantastic opportunity on Wednesday to meet the eLCs in the province face to face, I had the chance to present as part of the panel on building teacher capacity, and then to present again on how we need to change our thinking around “professional development”. I also had the opportunity to talk to people from both the e-Learning Ontario booth and the OSAPAC booth, so the three days in Niagara Falls was an incredibly rich learning experience.
Thank you for the huge part you played in that learning, and in making the event such an overwhelming success!
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Wow!
What a great collection of blog posts about ECOO13, Doug…thank you! I can’t believe how many more folks have joined the blogosphere in the last 6 or 7 years – it’s an amazing time for making (and keeping) connections!
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