Sunday, March 6, 2011

NCTIES and Twitter: A Conference Evolution

My first time attending NCTIES was great. I was able to gain so many new ideas and tools to utilize with students and teachers. Before I say anything else about my conference experience, I have to tell you a little bit about my conference habits.

First, I am a session hopper. This does not mean that the session I am attending is bad, it is just something I do. There are always multiple sessions I would like to attend, so I try to attend several during each hour. In fact, during this conference there was only one session that I stayed for in its entirety--QR Codes and why they matter to education. I have so many ideas for QR codes and was able to add to those by attending this session. Ok, back to the topic, session hopping. I have done this at conferences for as long as I remember. To further feed my session hopping problem, I have thrown Twitter into the mix!

This was the first conference where I used Twitter actively throughout. Wow! I will never again be without Twitter at a conference. It let me keep up with so much more than I could have ever done before with my session hopping. I was able to "see" what was going on at many different locations at the convention center. Twitter also saved me from a less than exciting session. I was not particularly enjoying one session and with prompting from Twitter I relocated.

I still have a lot to learn about the language of Twitter, but I truly see the added benefits of using Twitter to improve personal learning. I am sure I will have more posts in the days to come about my NCTIES experience, but nothing can surpass the role of Twitter for this conference.

2 comments:

  1. It was my first time attending NCTIES as well and I enjoyed it immensely. I tweeted throughout the event and made it a purpose to get better at multitasking. Like you, I got so much out of others tweets from different sessions. I'm glad you had a great time and I look forward to reading more about your experience.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @kellybrannock on TwitterMarch 6, 2011 at 9:33 PM

    I agree, Jennifer! I'm not a session hopper unless a session turns out to be less than expected. In that case, Twitter can be helpful in finding a 'Plan B' session. I also find that I am more engaged in listening when I'm tweeting. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but for me, tweeting is a lot like taking notes - it helps my focus and memory. I'm more engaged when I'm thinking about what's important to share. The other thing I noticed is that those who can't be there in person benefit from the tweets at the conference. While it's not the same as being there, following the conference tweets is a great way to pick up resources, inspiration, and new folks to follow.

    ReplyDelete