I had ever intention of attending EdCampIowa this year.  There was a session taking place in Iowa City so we had free room and board with my wife’s aunt and uncle, my kids would be spoiled, and all would be good.

Well, then my youngest daughter had a basketball game. Then, my oldest daughter was selected at attend the Meistersinger Honor Choir at Wartburg.  Then, my youngest daughter sustained a concussion playing basketball on Thursday.

Needless to say, this was not in the cards.

However, I did participate throughout the day online following the hashtag, which was a great way for me to be part of the learning throughout the day.

Now, online is not real life, not by a long shot, but I’ve got a few takeaways, watching pictures and tweets roll across my feed:

1) If we aren’t building relationships with our students, parents, co-workers, and community, why are we in education? We have so many incredible, portable, ever changing tools at our disposal to tell our story, to keep parents involved, to keep our students connected with ourselves and each other.  Why would we NOT be building those relationships in whatever fashion we could, keeping all stakeholders involved?

2) This goes with #1, why would we as educators not be connected?  Twitter, Google+, and many others can keep us working together to for the betterment of our profession and our students.

3) The edcamp notion continues to grow.  It was so great to see so many tweets and pictures that mentioned being at an edcamp for the first time.  It seems like this movement continues to grow, both in the number of edcamps taking place and in the number of edcamps taking place.  This form of professional fits into the “personalized education” idea, giving those involved a chance to vote with their feet and to learn what you need, right now.

Now, I know there are those out there who were in attendance and I hope to see your own take aways from this awesome day!

Next year, I’m going to get there and I hope to see you, #iaedchat people, there learning along with me! 🙂