On Friday and Saturday last week I attended the first #edchatnz conference. It was an awesome 2 days of connecting, sharing and engaging in educational discussions. A few things have really stuck with me over the past couple of days:

1. Our students at HPSS are awesome. here they were having a normal Friday of Extended Hub and then 3 hours in a Small Module whilst over 300 educators visited our school. A group of students had arrived early to help check delegates in and almost all students ended up in situations like this:
   

   Apocalypse Now students undergo the #edchatnz grilling and discuss their learning

   I was so proud of how well they handled answering questions about their learning, next steps and how the school structures impact on that by so many interested teachers whilst also getting on with the learning for their module. If you were on of the teachers who visited my module with Danielle, we would love to hear your feedback on what you saw (especially any critique for us to work on).

2. I loved the comment from Mark Osborne about the conference allowing us to engage in far deeper discussions than the 140 character limit on twitter allows us to do. I was mulling on how we can continue that when Reid started up the Blog Meme which is now doing the rounds. I am looking to extend this connection further so have been working with Danielle on an #edchatnz Blogging Challenge which will be released in the next couple of days.
3. It was awesome meeting so many people face to face when you have been engaging in discussions with them through twitter and blogs. This will make it far easier for us to use those connections in more depth now that we have a live person behind the handle. Perhaps this is the spark to allow us to challenge each others practices as well as praise them? So many people also makes it frustrating when you realise how many people you didn’t catch up with! A challenge for me at ULearn to meet up with some of those missed this time.
4. I absolutely loved the discussions that were occurring. So many people with a passion for pushing the boundaries and improving our collective practices. I also loved how many Pre Service Teachers were part of the 2 days. Really look forward to seeing them engage in our teaching community over the next couple of years!
5. My workshop on Creativity across the curriculum was really well attended. So much so, the late arrivals had to drag chairs from elsewhere to be able to sit down! It was a bit scary at first – A few interactive activities thrown out and a bit more of a Steve rant from the front but absolutely incredible to see so many wanting to increase the development of creativity in their students. Even more awesome to receive tweets over the past couple of days from people showing how they have already used some of the ideas 🙂  I am running a similar workshop at ULearn and have ideas after this one of how I can improve it to help teachers further. Have also had a couple of other possibilities arise to share this workshop elsewhere – crazy and exciting!
6. EduBookChatNZ is going to be great. If you read this blog regularly you will know that I enjoy reading and sharing edunerdery. Now I get to share those with a group reading the same book at a relatively similar time. Get a copy of Key Competencies for the Future and join us on #edubookchatnz.
7. A surreal moment as Karen Melhuish-Spencer quoted Hattie whilst using examples from my blog in her final keynote.  It showed to me that sure there are big researcher types in this world but lets look to what we are doing in our schools as there is plenty of great practice happening around us if we share it.
8. Linked to this was some thoughts about what impact my blogging and sharing online seems to have had on others. There were people really keen to meet me and some with a sense of looking up to what I was doing and sharing online. This was quite strange for me to deal with. What it shows to me is the power of sharing your learning online for others to see. I blog to help myself sort through my thoughts but also because I realise there might be someone else out there who those thoughts it might help as well. Your new idea gleaned from a conversation or reading you have been doing; that activity you tried out; that thing you have been struggling with if shared online could be just the thing to inspire others to take a risk or try something new. I look forward to being inspired by all these new bloggers in the wake of #edchatnz.