I’m sitting in a session at Fall Cue reflecting on the first day of the conference. I cannot get the thought out of my head about why people present at these conferences, or why do I. I have to admit, I love presenting sessions….but why?

Is it a pride thing, or maybe a bragging thing, maybe to feel smart or to feel like an expert? Why go to a conference full of smart people and say, “I am smart enough to tell you that I know something you don’t?”

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I think it is three things:

• I truly love teaching, and as an admin, it is one way I get to teach
• If what I do can help other people that is a good thing
• I do think I know some things [not everything] but if I share what I know, others can make it better and [hopefully] share it back

So I am presenting in a couple hours, a traditional talk about something I know and hope others can use. I should be focused on my upcoming session but I am thinking more about yesterday.  I got to present in a different style and it was so awesome. I guess it is like a poster session from what I am told.

The session was 6 educators in a room, all from different areas of education, talking about something they are passionate about. It was called the Better Together Learning Network. The idea is no matter the area of education you are in, working with other people will always be better than working alone.

We each sat at a table cluster and attendees walked around the room and joined the table in which the conversation peaked their interest. Some people stayed at one table for the entire hour, some people moved from table to table. It was whatever the wanted. It was pretty awesome.

I have to say that I enjoyed the style more so than a traditional session, not that I do not like the traditional style. Sitting at the table and having deep conversations with people that have deep questions is great. The best part for me selfishly is I learned as much as the people who joined my table. This typically does not happen at a traditional session.

Another side effect of this was I met a few amazing educators that I “know” on Twitter or Voxer, but have never met before. We were able to create a session and “market” the session over G-Suite over the past 2 weeks together. We modeled collaboration. It was so much fun.

Please, share what you learn, you never know who needs to hear what you have to say. As Brad Montague says, the world needs to hear your song!