In my own experience with my classes, neither f2f nor online learning packs a big enough punch. The real juice comes from a blended, or hybrid, learning environment.

(With als those mixed metaphors, it’s probably a good thing I don’t teach language arts, huh? )

My wireless went wonky at the conference and I was unable to participate in the backchannels or send comments, etc to individuals I knew would be interested in what I was hearing and seeing. I felt very disconnected!

I had difficult time choosing which session to attend and, like you, found the caliber of the ones I attended outstanding. I am so pleased that between the Ning and the links you and others have provided that I am able to continue to learn. It is very different from the days when the many papers I collected from a conference ended up in the trash.

I do wonder, as you articulated in your question to @dkuropatwa, if school divisions will see physical attendance as a waste of money when sessions become so easily available on the web. What a shame however, because I do believe that seeing, hearing and meeting presenters in person motivates one to keep extending the learning once the conference is over.

@KarenJan – I also loved what Alan said about students needing everything in a box. Whether it’s a DVD player, an iPod, mp3 player, whatever. They need to be able to take it with them to review.

which brings me to…

@dkuropatwa Do you think that attendance at some education conferences will go down because educators can access the info online after the fact OR during the conference? Do you think school districts will be less willing to send their teachers and pay the registration fee for conferences because content from conference sessions is so readily available?

The director at the MDE conference told someone to stop a ustream because of domain rights. The audience member asked the presenter permission ahead of time but the director felt the presentations were intellectual rights of the conference.

The success of any conference is almost entirely due to the work of the presenters. As someone who convenes an annual conference I know I am always amazed at the generosity of educators who share their knowledge with others: taking time away from their lives with their families to create engaging artifacts and experiences to help nameless and faceless colleagues learn a little more about how they do what they do. I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for what these folks do and how they share their work.

I wonder if that conference director told all the presenters that their hard work was now his intellectual property? I wonder what their reactions would have been? I wonder, if he publicized that when he put out his call for proposals, if any proposals would have been submitted?

I’ve had the good fortune to speak at a number of different engagements. All my work is freely available under (cc) By-No $-Share Alike. Nonetheless, I have never given up my intellectual property rights. I remember one time being asked permission to have a presentation video recorded. My reply: “Sure; as long as you make it available free on the Internet and you understand it remains my intellectual property” … we got along famously.

If I had been the presenter of that session, and he tried to stop someone sharing my content after I had said they could, we would have had words.

I think what this speaks to is our need to interact with and react to presentations and presenters. The lecture method (sit and git) isn’t working for us or our students. The backchannel provides opportunities to engage around the material and draw from the collective wisdom of those in attendance, both live and virtually. For me, the idea of attending a conference that does not provide opportunities for extension – backchannel, ustream, ning, twitter, blogging is no longer appealing.
And another advantage ustreaming provides, which can not be overlooked, is the opportunity to view the presentation again to review points that the presenter or keynote speaker made. Hearing information once is not enough. It takes time to process and digest new information. As Ewan said in his keynote, First is Saturation, then Incubation and finally Illumination. I am in the incubation phase but need to review some of the excellent points that were made throughout the conference. The social networking tools that are available allow me to do that.

I never really got a backchannel going in my sessions, mostly because I was learning Ustream myself and tried to do it all on my own rather than asking for help from my network (that said, thank you so much for helping me set up my last presentation!)
I think there are two reasons for a backchannel:
1. Share with those not able to be in the room.
2. Make the participating audience larger by adding contributions from those outside the room.
In the first case, there is no need to pull the conversation out of the backchannel back into the room.
In the second case, there should be a dedicated ‘backchanneler’ who facilitates the link in conversation… it doesn’t really work for the presenter to try to do this.
The main point is that the backchannel should be something that adds value rather than creates a distraction.

It was wonderful to meet amazing people like you and Liz, and yes it did feel like Cathy and Durff were with us:-)

Your comment reminds me of ISTE and NECC and the no-podcasting rule prior to the uproar right before the conference. Prove a need and a educational benefit and hopefully we will all be able to stream on!!

Lisa