I had a good look at previous years' Elearning Fusion Conferences on the Internet, and I was pleased to see several well- and some personally-known speakers at their earlier conferences. So I got my biography info and subject abstract in as quickly as I could
As a potential speaker, I found Marta and her team's communication to be prompt, unambiguous and effective. They confirmed all details, including flights and hotel arrangements promptly and I was reassured that I was in good hands.
And then suddenly, the time was upon us. In the week or so beforehand, I started promoting the conference and my session on social media - on Twitter and LinkedIn. I connected with my Session Chair and we messaged each other. I delivered my Presentation and story (about using social media to support social and collaborative learning) to the organisers via DropBox before the big day and, as I said several times beforehand, rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed.
And I'm glad I did.
Because I'd made one or two assumptions, based on looking at the previous years' events. I had planned a short practical exercise using Sticky or Post-It Notes, so that I could show a quick YouTube video and then reveal that it was a ploy on my part to demonstrate using social media for Social and collaborative Learning. This was dependent on the delegates sitting at desks or tables, as was the case at the previous ELF events. I had also assumed that the previous session speaker would run to time. Neither proved to be the case on the day.
No tables! Delegates were sitting theatre-style, in rows. And my session, the one before lunch, got squeezed by over-runs by the other two (Two? Only supposed to be one!) speakers.
Thankfully, because I had rehearsed often enough, I was able to flex. I binned the practical, told them about it and showed the video anyway. I pressed on, trimmed some of my stories, still managed to ask a couple of questions, set my challenge to everyone and managed to finish only two minutes over time myself. No-one's hunger for lunch overcame their hunger to learn, and everyone stayed to the end of the session.
So, to the challenge I set my participants. I asked how many of them blogged. Several hands went up. I asked how many of those made blogging part of their learning practice and encouraged others in their own learning communities to blog and share. Fewer hands. How many video blogged (or 'Vlogged'). Not many at all.
I suggested that we could build our own skills whilst showing leadership and 'walking the talk', by blogging, vlogging, tweeting or posting updates about our experiences at Elearning Fusion 19; what we had learned, what we were taking away and what we would be introducing into our practice.
I had previously invited people in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) to share their 'social media for social & collaborative learning' stories. My challenge to the rooms was to do the same. I suggested using the conference hashtag #ELF19 and the hashtag for my challenge, #ELFusionSoMe.
This blog is my first effort at that. I'll be very interested to see who and what else shows up!
