Most of the attendees were gray-heads. Just noticed as I walked along with the group that we were all the older folks, close to retirement. I wonder about that. The majority of CC instructors are 50+, but this conference also attracts K-12 and university instructors, too, so seems like there would be more of a mix (and I think there has been in previous years). So, it might be that the budget has axed attendance by younger instructors. I wonder how many of those attending had, like I did, financed their attendance without help from their campus budgets. I bet a significant bunch. It may also be a sort of tipping point. Maybe this type of conference only attracts the digital immigrants--the digi-natives not seeing the point, immersed in the digital world as they've been all their lives. Hmmmm. There's a dissertation in there.
It's also occurring to me that younger instructors might not be as interested in or see the need for conferences--large or small. My guess is that this sort of f2f networking will go out the window in favor of social networking and video conferencing. This round of budget cuts may put the final nail in that coffin. Anyone working on ways to develop large-scale conferences out there? It's a ship ready to come to port.
New features of the conference that I liked was the greater emphasis on social networking. There was a twitter feature, a conference portal, FB page, etc. Smart thinking on the part of the organizers, as the push in online is clearly in this direction. All of this seemed to work better than the conference itself, an experience antithetical to my first OTL conference, which I attended virtually and found it to be plagued with tech issues. This time, the off-site attendees may have had the best experience. The webinars were the best of the bunch and there were sessions that I attended that were poorly thought out and executed--not the caliber that they have been in the past. So, I may try the virtual route again next year....
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