Written by I attended CoSN’s annual conference in Austin, TX this week. I’m glad I went, though my impressions from the conference are mixed.
What I liked about the CoSN conference:
- Serious - the overall tone/climate of the event is, IMHO, very serious. I mean that in a good way. The tone stands in stark contrast to some of the larger conventions that long ago crossed the line of professionalism. There were no costumes or gaudy theme decorations at this conference, thankfully.
- Location – the weather in Austin sucked. That said, I’d always wanted to go to Austin and the little of it I saw was appealing. I’m sick of the Orlando, SF, New Orleans conference scenes. This was a nice change for me.
- Focus – there were a few sessions that were about tech. tools and/or pedagogy, but there was definitely more of a focus on bigger policy issues. I’m cool with that.
- Opening keynote – though he seemed a bit cranky, I thought Don Tapscott’s presentation worked. I’ve not read any of his books, but I like that he writes and speaks from evidence. He’s done the research necessary to make the claims that he does. [NOTE: I had to leave before the Christenson/Horn keynote, so I don't know how that went.]
And, here’s what I didn’t like:
- Facility – the conference used the 4th and 6th floors of a Hilton hotel. That was fine, but there were very few spaces to sit outside of the rooms. The hallways were long and wide spaces that didn’t lend themselves to convening and chatting. It just felt cold and lonely in the facility. Also, without an air card, wireless Internet access cost $10.95/day. Not a huge expense, but tech. conferences should freely open the cloud to the attendees.
- Sessions – nothing meaningful can happen in 45-minutes. Just about every session I attended had to end abruptly and lacked speaker/audience interaction because the speakers took the whole time.
- Lack of diversity – this continues to infuriate me. The attendees at this conference made the NECC crowd look like a rainbow and that doesn’t say much.
- Cost – this was an expensive event to attend. On top of that, it seemed like there was a lot of nickle-and-diming going on. When I heard that CoSN would be making the final keynote available on the Web on a pay-per-view basis, I nearly choked to death.
As usual these days, the real value of the conference was in the face-to-face conversations that happened before, between and after the sessions. I met some of the folks in my Twitter network and a host of new educators. And, most importantly, I had some real Texas BBQ!
Jonathan – Thanks for the feedback on the conference, both the likes and dislikes. Just to clarify on the Pay-per-view…this is for folks who either could not attend or attend and what to share what they heard in the closing speech. So, we are not “nickeling & diming” folks, but rather providing a way for those who could not attend to participate. This is our first attempt at doing this, and we are curious to see if folks are willing to pay a modest fee for a keynote speech. Check out the CoSN website next week for details…they will also be sent to attendees and members of CoSN.
Also, a minor quibble, but most breakouts were 1 hour (a few were 45 min). The tension is always that we have about 5-6 times as many folks asking to present as we can select, so we do have to make hard choices and often combine sessions. That said, we do encourage the presenters to give the big points and not try to provide every detail…which could be provided in Q&A or handouts or on their websites. You are right that the real value is in the interaction, and too often speakers provide only the “sage on the stage” mode.
Warm regards,
Keith
CoSN
Jonathan,
I am glad you felt the conference was valuable to you. I did want to let you know that in the CoSN bag was a flyer announcing that internet access was available wirelessly with the special CoSN code that was provided for a token $1.00 per day. Sorry you did not notice that information. Hope you join us next year in D.C.
Sheryl Abshire, Immediate CoSN Past Chair
Oh, Thanks for bringing up Austin.
I should be all rights be at South BY Southwest even now, scrapping up a good breakfast to fill in from the nights’ parties, and prepping for a really solid day of choosing great sessions.
Education managers: you could make it easier for technical people to get help with innovative education projects.
SXSW is packed with free beer and free food and free entertainment each night. Austin’s great!!
Plus there’s free wifi everywhere.
While I didn’t attend CoSN, I will say that the issue with presenters ending abruptly happens way too often. Too many presenters aren’t good public speakers in the sense that they don’t know how to adequately fill the allotted time. The small number of presentations I’ve done I’ve made a point of creating a website/wiki and present on only the main topics. All of the “cute’ info can be find on the site. I completely agree that the interaction is a valuable part of any session, not trying to prove how much you know by cramming it all into a Chinese food take home box.
As far as I know, Austin sounds like the coolest place in the world for a conference, among other things. I’d do just about anything to get to a conference there instead of in Vegas or LA, but I doubt too many of them go to cool places like that. Also a shame about the internet access… That’s why it’s a really good idea to have a device you can tether for your own use, wherever you go.