EdCamp Boston 2012

EdCamp Boston

Yesterday, I attended my very first Edcamp Unconference in Boston at the Microsoft building in Cambridge with Matt McDonald @BHSMcD.  The building itself was beautiful and the views of the Charles river were even better.

I must say that I had a BLAST!  I absolutely loved the whole concept of an unconference.  For those of you who do not know what this is, it is a conference that is basically run by the participants who are attending.  There are not exhibitors trying to sell to you their products.








The coolest part of the conference is that the schedule of sessions is actually created right there on the spot.  It just so happened that I ended up co-presented with three people I meet from Plymouth South High School in MA.  We had a discussion about what Senior Project looks like at each school.  It was great to be able to bounce ideas off of each other.  Had a blast presenting with Allison @allisonshaver, Eric @erikmwalker and Kate @K8JHughes.

The day also provided a great means of meeting people that I have been following virtually for sometime as well as catching up with good friends and colleagues, like Mary Marotta @mmarotta and Lauren @LaurenMarotta27.

I highly recommend to all educators to attend one of these events.  It is a cool experience that I know I will participate in again.  Thanks to all of the organizers who made EdCamp Boston possible!

Have You ifttt Yet?

I heard about this web tool awhile ago but really did not do anything with it until this spring break.  ifttt is short for "If this, then that."  Click HERE for direct access to the website.  The concept is very simple.  In fact, the slogan on the main page of ifttt is "Put the internet to work for you!"  Basically, there are about 2 dozen 'channels' or accounts that you can choose from to connect to one another.  Such channels are Twitter, Blogger, Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox, Linkin, Google Reader, etc.  There are thousands of 'recipes' that you choose from to connect accounts together.  For instance, lets say anytime you have favorited a tweet from your Twitter account, you can have ifttt send that favorited tweet directly to your Evernote account for you to access at another time. (If I favorite a tweet, then send to Evernote). Another example would be, If I add a blog post to my blogger account, then tweet it out from my Twitter account automatically. Another one could be, if it will rain tomorrow, then send me an email. The possibilities are endless.  This application most definitely can do all of the work for you to make your life easier.  I HIGHLY recommend you check out this tool if you have not done so already. It really is awesome.