Thanks, #Ednado, or How I Loved Connecting Face to Face with my #PLN

Sunday, April 26, 20158:32 PM

I typically enjoy any conference with good company, good learning, and good food, but I had really high expectations for Ednado. Ednado, a free conference that took education by storm yesterday, was a great day of learning and fun for many different reasons:

  • I presented with my best friend Dani for the first time. How could I have not realized how much more fun it is to present when you love your topic, audience, and co-presenter? This was legitimately the most fun I've ever had in one of my own presentations. I think I'm a good presenter and usually feel like participants have learned and haven't had their time wasted. This was probably the first time I felt like we all had fun, too. Thanks to EasyBib for the hype as one of the 5 sessions to watch out for! If you are interested in backchanneling in the secondary classroom, our presentation is here.




  • I didn't set myself up to be overwhelmed. Too often at conferences, I feel like I try to do everything. I attend every session, no matter how much I think I'll learn. Ednado was casual, relaxed, and fun. I learned a lot but also spent my day hanging out, meeting people, and having great conversations. Instead of attended every session, I followed the learning on Twitter and opted to dominate the scavenger hunt, learn from the amazing Student Tech Team, and connect with my #PLN. 


  • At Ednado, my #PLN became F2F friends. I love connecting online and participating in Twitter chats. I love meeting new people at conferences. But this was the first time where I was able to meet people who I had established Twitter-connections with in real life. And it was awesome.


My Take Away: Learn, grow, and push yourself, but make sure to enjoy it. I had such a great day of learning and fun at Ednado, and a lot of that was because I was able to hang out and make friends with a lot of great educators and Twitter buddies. Instead of mastering every tech tool under the sun, we had meaningful conversations; instead of presenters and audience or recognizing acquaintances, we became friends and spent the day learning from each other. Throughout the day I must have connected with a dozen Twitter friends, and it was great putting names to faces and watching my personal learning network grow.

I always tell my students that we collaborate and share because all of us are smarter than one of us. I'm so glad I became a connected educator and met all of these great people.

Thanks to the Ednado organizers for putting on a great day. From the sessions to the food to the casual atmosphere, all day coffee, a cafeteria to hang out in, the scavenger hunt, Twitter leaderboard and more, I had a great day. Plus, I won a GetKahoot! shirt! 




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