I’m writing this reflection way later than I intended too! The rest of my time in the States after NECC proved to be a low internet access time for me and since getting back to Hong Kong work has been hectic.
Excuses out of the way what did I think about my first NECC experience?

Overall I think NECC was an interesting, worthwhile experience although not for the reasons I expected. The conference took place in San Antonio at the end of June and into the beginning of July. At 13,000 attendees is probably the largest conference of its type in the world (although the product Expo at BETT in London is apparently slightly bigger). Despite its size (or perhaps because of it) some of the sessions were not that effective in terms of learning. Mainly the sessions with ’stars’ like David Warlik had hundreds of people and you really lose any chance of interaction. That being said there were some very good sessions in more niche areas like programming. The main takeaway for me overall was the product expo which had over 500 exhibitors.

I know there is a lot of cyncisim (warrented in the edubloggercon case) in the edublogosphere about software and hardware vendors. Frankly I was taken aback by the commercial influence on the conference. However, you can’t avoid vendors and the tools they provide. True the conversation is about teaching and learning but also ultimatly we are having the conversation due to the tools that exist both in open source and from commercial vendors.
What were my main takeaways from the conference:
  1. Wisdom of Crowds: James Surowiecki was the keynote on the first day and talked eloquently (although a little canned) about the good decision making power of diverse communities. Very relevent for schools and super relevent for those of us making decisions about technology - the ‘echo chamber‘ must be avoided at all costs!
  2. Power of Global Connections: Speakers and classroom teachers in posters sessions offered up a lot of examples of the power of global connections enabled by technology. Perhaps this is something we can overlook easily in international school schools we we feel “global” all the time. However, I came away convinced that this is something one should see everyday at a “2.0″ school. Connecting students with other students is such a powerful way to find authentic audiences and get at 21st century literacies.  One canadian teacher who did a keynote on the projects his upper primary class has been involved in connecting to students in Serria Leone spoke passionately and convincingly about how these projects have really helped his students develop intrest in global issues as well as develop communcation skills and charchaer by connecting with people connected to issues, communicating with them and doing so in a respectful manner. There are many tools out there to help enable connected classrooms including TakingItGlobal or the Flat Classroom Project
  3. Need for Pedagogical change, supported by fluent use of the tools
  4. Disruptive change is OK and the starting point for change in schools you can’t move everyone along one step at a time.
  5. ISTE has just released the teacher standards. There is also a new observation tool ICOT. The tool seems to work pretty well at least from a technical perspective… The challege is getting the data by doing the observations!