I love going to conferences, but I end up valuing the time between sessions, when I talk or interview smart – people I know, or reflect on what I saw with friends and colleagues. Essentially, I try to tap into the wisdom of the room, and not just at the front of the room presenting.
As conferences move online, I’m not interested in hopping into a virtual room to watch a presentation, and then repeat this again and again… I want time to debrief, to connect and have conversations, to discuss ideas in pairs and small groups. I’m not just talking about a 5-10 minute breakout session in an hour long presentation, I’m talking about scheduled time to ponder, discuss, and apply what I’m learning to my context, with people I work with.
The way I see it, digital conferences need dedicated collaboration, discussion, and reflection time built right into the schedule… Digital meeting spaces scheduled into the day. There needs to be opportunities for conversation, serendipity, and reflection.
The spaces between the sessions needs to be recreated in digital conferences so that conference goers can connect and share their thoughts and ideas outside of presentation sessions. We need public learning spaces, recreated hallways, coffee shops, and courtyards.
Do you know of any online conferences trying to do this?
I really like your point David about the importance of the informal conversations. This reminds me of something I wrote a few years ago about the hidden professional development.
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/Blogger-Peer-Review/quotebacks@1/quoteback.js
I read an interesting reflection from Oliver Quinlan on his efforts to manage the transition, however a space to converse did not come up. I think that this will all lead to a lot of private back chats. The challenge with this is that it is hard to have these with people you have not actually met before.
Aaron, you are ‘somewhat’ right about it being hard to have these exchanges with people you haven’t met before… I say ‘somewhat’ because tools like Twitter reduce the unknown between people. In 2018 I went to SXSW (South by South West) EDU Conference in Austin Texas. I roomed with someone I met once before at another conference, Jeff Richardson, but knew from Twitter. And, the informal conversation I had with Jeff, and with David Jakes, whom I’d only met a couple times before at conferences, were the best part of the conference. I did podcasts with them between sessions.
Pair-a-Dimes 20 – David Jakes
Pair-a-Dimes 21 – Jeff Richardson
The day the conference ended, I met up with Miguel Guhlin and he drove me to 2 different schools and then the airport… I had never met Miguel face to face before this. Oh, and I made another podcast of that after-conference trip.
Pair-a-Dimes 22 with Miguel Guhlin – An Austin, Texas Road Trip
To be honest, the only session I remember from that conference 2 years later is a horrific one from a Digital Literacy ‘Expert’ who said students should search for their own sources so that they can ‘find their own Truth’… scary.
The entire conference for me was valuable only because of the time I made in between and after the conference, to connect with smart people who enriched my learning experience.