What can you get at #iste10 for FREE?

I'm not talking about the little giveaways from the vendors, friends!

I did not pay to attend any of the formal ISTE conference.  Why? 1) It's somewhat expensive. 2) I have a 5 month old.

I did, however, come to Denver for some of the conference aspects that were free!

I attended EduBloggerCon.  This was my first EduBloggerCon, and I was in love with the organization of the day.  People just signed up for what they want to talk about on big sheets of paper.  Then, people signed the papers to show their interest in the sessions.  The sessions were organized into time slots and locations and off we went to discuss!

I had some AWESOME conversations with people and also did a great deal of just listening.  I was involved in conversations about personal branding (which got me thinking about what happens when you google me, but that's a whole different blog post), best practices in student blogging (check out some notes from the session here), and probably the discussion that got the most people fired up was the conversation facilitated by Jon Becker about the term PLN.

I attended two tweet ups and got to meet many people I "know" from Twitter.   A tweet up sounds like a silly thing, but it was awesome to be able to sit and converse with people who have the same nerdy/educational interests as me in an informal environment and in more than 140 characters!  I mean, who knew I'd end up having a conversation Google Docs at Hard Rock Cafe at 9pm on a Sunday night?

Tonight I am headed to #edchat.  This weekly conversation usually happens on Twitter each Tuesday night and the topic is selected by the participants.  I don't even know what the topic is, but it is always great conversation! This week, people at #iste10 are getting together to have a live #edchat!

My FREE experience at #iste10 was FULL of conversations!  I know I missed out on so much by attending the actual conference, but I already told Russ that we are saving up and both attending #iste11!

How I use the RT

I really enjoy being on Twitter. I participate in many conversations, both education related and not.  I love the amount of resources shared as well.  I'm not on Twitter 24/7, and I don't think many of us can be.  Sometimes I feel like I miss out on resources and conversations because I can't get back in the feed far enough...shoot..sometime I can barely keep up with what is going on in the present! 

I've noticed a lot of people retweet things right after they are shared.  This is a great method if you have a larger following than the person who RTed the post in the first place.  I, however, probably have a smaller following than many of the people that I follow.  So, I've taken a different spin on the RT.  Lately you may have noticed that I'm RTing things that are old....days old...hours old...maybe in some cases weeks old.  I'm trying to do this to benefit people like me who can't be on Twitter all the time.  I've been taking posts that are of interest, favoriting them, and then looking back through my favorites each day and posting a few, either from earlier in the day for those that weren't on at that time or days earlier because some people can't be on Twitter every day.

So, if you notice I post something you tweeted out a while ago, I'm not really that far behind.  It's not a glitch in the system.  I'm just trying to help out others like me who can't participate all the time.