#Edscape
I was part of the professional development collaboration at New Milford High School in New Jersey yesterday. It was organized and run by my friend for many years now, Eric Sheninger. If you are active on Twitter, you know him as @nmhs_principal. As I attended this conference, I tried to figure out why this felt a little different from other conferences. It was not an Unconference, yet it was clearly not a typical organization-led, schedule-driven conference of the past. It seemed to be a blend or a hybrid of the best of both types. Where Unconferences are social media driven, this was premeditated and planned. The preparation of the workshops however, did not push topics of the tried and true, tired topics of tech in education like many of the organizational conferences. The topics were relevant, cutting edge, and somewhat social media driven. Most of the speakers were from the ranks of social media. I think every educator/speaker on schedule is in my Professional Learning Network. Many are stand-outs to me. They are people I go to with questions. They are bloggers who I follow. They are people I seek out for conversation.
I think it is important to note that the history of social media as we have come to know it, doesn’t go so far back in time. Yes there were list serves going years back, but they were generally populated by Tech-savvy