Chris Betcher

I think I can safely say I've just been to one of the best conferences I've ever attended.  It was well run, well organised and I believe provided content that was highly relevant to all the participants.  The irony is that the day before it all started, it was completely unorganised and had virtually no content planned at all.  I'm talking about the Learning 2.010 Conference held last week at Concordia International School in Shanghai, China. I think it's really important to draw a clear distinction between being un organised and being dis organised.  Dis organised is when things are a complete mess, no one has any idea of what's happening, people are not getting their needs met and it leads to frustration for everyone involved.  This conference was definitely not dis organised. Un organised, on the other hand, implies a understanding that learning is messy and that when we need to learn something we learn it best if we can learn it just-in-time, not just-in-ca...

I recently wrote about the Apple ITSC events that I was lucky enough to have been a part of.  They're all over now, and after having participated at ITSCs on the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne (as well as the one in my home town of Sydney) I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in them.  One of the best aspects of the way ITSC was run this year was the way they leveraged the unconference concept and tried to break away from the traditional "sit and git" model of learning at conferences.  The unconference model is a good model for learning because it attempts to meet people's needs for knowledge, allowing those with expertise to share it and those with questions to ask them.  The lack of rigid structure is what makes it work along with the fact that you learn more when you get actively involved in learning about things that are directly relevant to you. If you ever want to run an unconference, there is plenty of advice online about how...