York Region's Biggest Conference - QUEST - My Reflections as a Presenter and Delegate

Well.  Here I am, after I delivered a workshop last Friday  and spent some time on the playground, exhorting the importance of blogging -  and... I'm blogging.  Sounds very hypocritical doesn't it?

Except, I was mostly presenting "STUDENT" blogging.  I was trying to encourage other educators, even myself, to continue on this journey of student blogging so that my students wouldn't just be writing for me or for marks, but rather write for a global, authentic audience.

And yes, even my workshop contained a global audience.  I always 'heard' that QUEST was becoming quite an international conference.  I could see that it was from the keynote speakers that were invited, but how about the participants?  Well, I used something called pear deck, which allowed me to interact with my audience members as they moved their red dot on their device to where they lived - now granted, I had 41 responses out of 60, and some of those responses were apparently from off the coast of Antarctica and the north pole, but I would hazard that most of these responses were accurate:

I then outlined a few ways to guarantee student and/or adult comments and views.  This would then encourage some intrinsic motivation to write.  Here's the handout:

I went to George Couros' session at the beginning of the QUEST conference on blogging to see if my presentation would overlap and it didn't.  However, as he was speaking, I realized, I probably should present his point of view. 

You see, I'm an introvert.  And he's like an extrovert.

He's convinced me to blog about my teaching and to create a portfolio of my progress as a teacher.  I am now, putting on my mask of extroversion, as Susan Cain would put it so that I can champion the things that I value the most - education.

As I was presenting my workshop, I started to convince myself of George Couros' words and here I am executing it.  I am now blogging.  My own workshop transformed me.

I hope it changed others as well. 

EDIT:  I just received a general congratulatory note from the organizer of Quest:  "Numerous congratulatory emails sent to me internationally, nationally and locally confirm the excellent planning, preparation, and delivery of Deep Learning in a Digital World. Keynote Speakers share with me their ‘WOW’!!! "  It makes me a little happy to be a part of this conference.

EDIT2:  Here is my QUEST workshop description to save it in my portfolio