Saturday 11 April 2015

#NETsConf - Inaugural Establishing Teachers Conference 8th-10th April 2015

Will blog more in depth tomorrow... here's a link though to our #NETsConf storify - https://storify.com/ariaporo22/netsconf-inaugural-ppta-establishing-teachers-con

Wow. So it's the end of the break now - only tomorrow to go til we're back at school. I still can't quite believe that we pulled #NETsConf off! I was so so worried about lots of logistical things - but once everyone came - my worries dissipated and we could get started.

It was an absolute pleasure meeting and connecting with everyone. It was a great experience for me being on the organising committee - and being the only member of the committee who was at conference - meaning that it became my conference in a lot of ways.

Delegating the waiters to different tables where the delegates kai was placed in front of them; organising the scavenger hunt; participating in the teach with tech panel; collaborating with Blake on a more indepth tech session and collaborative and cross curricular speed dating - had to really be there...

It was invigorating... and tiresome at the same time.

Was stoked that everyone enjoyed Bitchin' Bingo - despite a few people leaving before it started. Though I suppose I didn't really explain what we were doing - part of the surprise I supppse because it just is so awesome. If I'd explained it they all might not have gotten so into it.

I think that there are a lot of areas where we can improve it for the coming conference. I hope after this inaugural one - we'll get funding for the next one.

A week or so before conference we had a very lengthy discussion about our first keynote speaker - one of which I myself was completely torn. I made my position very clear, yet understand why we came to the decision that we did. Unfortunately we didn't go with my suggestion - though I'm glad that there wasn't further issues in regards to negative comments from some members. The alternative keynote speaker was really good - though it was definitely a basics look into the world of coding - mainly because of the wide range of skills and knowledge at our conference.

This is one of the areas in which we will need to be more aware of in future.

What would have been better would have been to run the conference like an Educamp where it is 'unconference' styled - a lot more flexibility in terms of workshops and more individualised and relevant learning.

Also - thinking about who we have coming to conference and catering for their needs.

As a first conference I think we did well. There was a broad range of topics - however our first suggestion of structure for the conference with a wider range of workshop topics was discarded for a more structured programme.

I would have liked to have more activism as a focus and even more time to get to know each other and whakawhanaungatanga.

Having the opportunity to organise this conference was seriously awesome. A huge challenge but totally worth it.

Huge thanks to PPTA Exec for giving us the funds to be able to hold it. We got great feedback and some awesome feedforward as well. Thanks to everyone who came and to those who missed out this year - hopefully we get another chance for another one in the future!

In the meantime - watch out for our off the cuff #NETsChatNZ Twitter chats like this one:

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