I am always slightly uneasy about conferences. Although I enjoy meeting people and talking about stuff I find the whole thing to be altogether too huge and a little on the intimidating overwhelming side.

That being said, there are some observations that I’d like to make about this week’s Learning at School conference in Rotorua.

1. we have some amazing teachers in this country.The willingness to share their learning is absolutely amazing.
2. our ICT conferences attract a wide cross section of the education population. I met old conference friends and met people who had only just jumped onto the ICTPD juggernaut. There were lots of teachers who were really worried about leaving their class so early in the year. This is a Good Thing.
3. the practical sessions are really important. People want to learn about blogs, wikis and podcasts (for example) and how to use them. Keep up the 101 workshops.
4. related to above … please write abstracts that actually relate to the session that you are presenting.
5. the pedagogy is even more important (than number 4).
6. presentations that are linked to a particular sponsor’s product should be labelled as such. Pedagogy cannot be used to loosely wrap what is in effect a product placement.
7. Marvin looks to be very interesting use of 3d and avatar technology. I can see all sorts of potential uses for it. Let’s hope that it doesn’t quickly descend into Marvinocrity with unplanned, quickly thrown together mashups of sound and irrelevant characters.
8. the Engineering Challenges website mentioned a couple of times over the conference. “With input from people around the world — much of it on this website — an international group of leading technological thinkers were asked to identify the Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century. Now their conclusions are revealed on this website.” Link
9. the story of the Starry Starry Night machinima shown us on Tuesday night. Robbie Dingo is a Second Life avatar – but we knew that didn’t we? Link to high quality download
10. two interesting statements from Jeremy Kedian‘s initial keynote, “too strong an engagement with multiple agendas will paralyse growth” and ” teachers are overwhelmed by the dailiness of their position”. How are we adding to that?
11. copyright, copyleft, Creative Commons. There is a loose understanding out there about who owns what. Maybe I should resurrect the 2005 presentation?
12. we are several years down the track now and understand bandwidth. Second Life, video from the internet, even voice chat all require a fatter pipe than can be found with a shared wireless connection. Either put these sessions into a room with wired connections for all participants or make them into presentations. The stress that a shakey internet connection puts on a presenter is awful.
13. the greatest networking opportunity of them all – the conference dinner dance floor.

I enjoyed my few days in Rotorua but I am so glad to be back at home in my own bed and with my own bandwidth. To the people whose sessions I attended, thank you for all of your hard work and for sharing your insights.