I agree with Laura… going to conferences that are –out– of your comfort zone and/or area of expertise can be really great. The problem is, at least in Academia, you need to do a hard sell to justify, for example, why I, “the languagelablady,” would need to go to something as big (and expensive!) as ELI. Even more if I were to try and attend something as —totally– outrageous as a NMC conference. ;-)

I started blogging/webcasting specifically because I had very few funds to go to conferences and even fewer funds to go to the really cool conferences either inside or outside of my field. Sometimes I am clever and am able to contact the folks who present at these mega-conferences and convince them to come and yabber on LLU. I feel like I have beaten the whole “omg- you-paid-how-much-to-go-that-meeting?” system when that happens. But then I miss, as Laura mentions above, the collegiality and the connections that can happen during the Yahootinis.

Blogging, twittering and the informal learning spaces we create as professionals (professional learners?) with these tools can fill the void in the interim. Out here in the cold cornfields they become my lifeline. But alas, they are no replacement for the opportunity to actually meet the people whose words you have come to know and respect and follow over time and over the web.

Cheers!

Barbara

I like going to conferences where I’m way out of my field. I went to SXSW a couple of years ago and that kind of blew my mind. The sessions were different, the chatter in the hallway was way different, and the alcohol was free. :) Problem is, I have to convince my employers that these conferences have merit. I really shouldn’t. Shouldn’t everything be related to education? If we’re preparing our students for the world, shouldn’t we see a lot of it, from a lot of different angles?

I have yet to go to an unconference, but I’m thinking of running one. I love the idea of showing up, posting what I want to learn about, what I want to teach, and then just talking to some smart people and hearing what they have to say. As someone said on my blog, though, there are a lot of people not on the bleeding edge of things who do actually get something out of these things. But I keep thinking, just because there are those people, does that mean I have to pander to them or be like them? I wouldn’t ask a physics professor to retake Physics 101. Why should I have to take Web 2.0 101? And doesn’t the Physics professor acknowledge that her Physics 101 students are at the bottom of a curve? Why can’t I acknowledge the same thing of some folks at my school and in the audience of these conferences? I’m not being condescending. I’m acknowledging a reality.

I kind of hinted at the conference that it would be nice to have an “advanced” track, something where we could really talk and play with stuff that’s pretty far out there. Why couldn’t Apple or Microsoft or Google bring the really new stuff to these conferences instead of iLife and tablets and Google maps which may be new to some, but old hat to many of us? And like you said, maybe we could build something together, the tools that no one else has yet created. But yeah, let’s make it fun!