NECC ’09 Wrap-up, or The last NECC

NECC is no longer, both NECC ‘09 and the term NECC, it will now be known as ISTE, which makes sense as that is the name of the group that puts it on. Was sort of awkward to talk about NECC and ISTE not to mention SIGTC without really confusing people and myself for that matter.

A large time was had by all. I have gotten so that I do not try to get every t-shirt and other do-dad offered by every vendor, I did not get enough pens, as this is where I usually stock up on pens. I really had two things to look for on the exhibit floor and I found them, which is good. I lusted after some cameras, but I always do. My camera is on its deathbed, so a new one would be nice, but not in the $2000 range.
The sessions were good; I did not leave any of them. Learned some stuff too. Meeting people is always a highlight, and meeting up with my PLN from Plurk is always good. Nice to meet the faces you write to almost daily. The blogger’s café, as last year was a nice place to visit and network. Last year it was located in a corner of the convention hall, so it was a comfortable space, this year it was in a T intersection of the hall, making it loud and chaotic during session changes.

Places to plug in laptops are always at a premium, with this being no exception. I brought a power strip; we could share somewhat meager resources for power. The convention center did have some extra power cords run to some tables, which was a good thing.

Every year there is an issue with the wireless network. When I was in a ‘bring your own laptop’ session it was down, sort of makes the point of the workshop ironic. There were occasional outages, given that this is supposed to be one of the largest technology conferences, one would hope the network could handle it. It was better than before, but needs to be much better.

I met a person from Diigo, a social book-marking site which I use. We had a few good conversations, and I hope to work with this group in the next few months as they refine their offerings for education.

Had a magazine person ask if I do some writing, and will be in contact with them over the next few weeks. If anyone actually reads this, they may wonder what the publication could posssibley be thinking. But what the heck, I am just a charming guy.

Now the president elect for SIGTC, see how that goes. In two years, when I am supposed to be president, older son graduates from HS. Which do I do ISTE or graduation? I was going to give up on doing SIGTC board work, after several years, but what the heck, might as well do this. It means free ISTE meetings for a couple of years. I already am a session review chair, so that I get registration paid for, but this will cover some hotel and transportation.

Washington hotels are very expensive, as are most hotels near conference sites. As it is my employer did not pay for any part of me attending, so I drove down, and slept in the car the first night. I then went to a hotel that is a 5-minute walk from the end of the Metro line, and stayed there. Saved about $100 per night, and it cost about $7 to take the Metro in.

So many other things to think about and do as follow ups to this meeting, and I am looking forward to going to Denver for ISTE 1010.

NECC day 3

After all of that the SIGTC forum was good. Well received by all, I think. 

One of the best parts of NECC is meeting people in your PLN. By going to the 'Bloggers Cafe' you can see many of your virtual friends. Many of us have been using Plurk to make notes about sessions and keeping our peers outside of NECC abreast of what is going on.

Keynote address good last night. Now in the SIGTC business meeting, I am now the president-elect. I was going to resign from the board, but here I am.

Have a panel in a few hours, but will see the vendors before that.

Second Day NECC

Second day. Met with SIGTC leaders to discuss our forum this AM, now we are waiting outside of the room where the forum will be held. We will not be able to get in until about a half hour before hand, which is not good. We usually have a few hours in the room before hand, but there is a SIG leadership meeting in there now. Guess we could not have scheduled the rooms better? A couple of our people we need to meet with are in this meeting too. Bummer. Would be nice to have some cooperation between ISTE and our SIG. But this seems to be status quo. 

Edubloggercon was great. Posted many links onto my diigo page. Got to meet with a Diigo person yesterday, and we discussed some things that could be tweaked. Very nice and helpful. 

Got here Saturday at about 6 am yesterday, made it to my hotel at 3pm figured to take a nap, woke up at 10pm. guess that was a bit longer than I wanted. Well rested and ready to go.

Apparently the group that reviewed sessions for this years NECC, had my session listed in their top 3, not sure why I got turned down, that sure seems strange. Should I be paranoid? Sort of confusing, I have not be approved for my sessions, yet seem to be listed high every year, interesting, wonder who doesn't like me? 

Will post later on, need to do it from here, my hotel has plugin internet and I don't have a patch cable. So it goes

NECC '09

I leave tonight for what is one of the year's highlights, NECC. This year it will be in Washington DC.

My wonderful wife will not be with me this year, but will be next year in Denver for NECC '10.

Every year I learn more than I thought possible at NECC, not just from sessions, but from others. The sharing done in informal sessions is great, we meet people in our PLN that have been names attached to 140 character plurks or twitters. The big kick-off is edubloggercon on Saturday.

I hope to do a fair amount of blogging over the next few days, keeping myself and others aware of what is going on. There will be some Diigo links, but more blogging than normal. By the way, at the SIGTC forum on Sunday, I will be doing a mini session on Diigo. Also I will be on a panel on Monday about Tech leaders.

So follow this space, contact me, or see you at NECC