Ok, so normal may not be the right word.

But the recently concluded NECC (soon to be the conference formerly known as NECC) certainly was a very different experience from the past four or five I’ve attended.

Much of that was due to having the event so close to town (and commuting into town instead of staying in a hotel) in addition being more involved with both supporting the conference and our district’s presence.

Going far away for a conference is somewhat isolating, even with constant connectivity, and going home every night instead of a hotel allowed real life to intrude.

One result was that I didn’t get to many sessions, but I’m not sure that’s a big problem. Increasingly for me the real value of a conference like NECC is not found in the presentation rooms but in the corners and hallways.

It was not being able to spend much time in the Blogger’s Cafe or at NECC Unplugged (not to mention the after hours conversations) that I missed most.

Fortunately, I did make it to EduBloggerCon, which is more of those less formal discussions (more thoughts about that in another post). And my session went well.

Anyway I’ll also be spending more time than would be normal in the weeks following NECC going through the videos and other online materials to get some idea of what I missed.

And figuring out how I can get to Denver next year.