A Growth Experience that I will Remember!

   Earlier this year, I've set two goals for 2014. One of them was to give a presentation at a local conference. For over one year, I kept procrastinating this moment, but reflection lead me to pack my bags and jump for the adventure when I received this mail.

I've attended  web conferences , this time was different because I'll be the presenter! I've started working on my presentation, doing some research, getting in touch with other presenters, and getting trained on how to use the Blackboard collaborate platform, that  hosted all the conferences of the #RSCON5. The event took place 11th- 13th July, 2014 and featured 50+ presentations, 11 keynote speakers, 3 panel discussions, and a tech/app swapalooza.
   A group of skilled volunteers working day and night to make this global event a success-and it was! They were working on facebook, twitter, google+, and Ning,  before, during and after the event. Assuming different roles, most of the volunteers were also presenters at the conference, which made the task even tougher for them. The point is that they are volunteers, presenters, investing their time and comfort to make of this event a success, to inspire educators, to spread a culture sharing knowledge, spread a culture of tolerence, openness, hard work and a supportive community of educators worldwide. Through making connections with other educators and sharing ideas we make our teaching practice a better one for the benefit of our learners, and teachers can expand their PLN via various social media and platforms.

Presenters get the necessary support to promote their sessions through flyers, posters and badges to post to different social media. Here are mine

Attendees get badges from presenters for being to their sessions, they also get certificates of attendance.
Many who were to my session received this badge:

Recordings are available to view. Not only those of the RSCON5, but also those the previous ones. That makes of it a library of resources, ideas, tips at one's reach.

screen capture of my session info

There were 30 people to my session, people ready to be inspired from different parts of the world. Marijana Smolčec a felow teacher from Croatia, Marcià Lima from Brazil, Ayat Tawel from Egypt, Peggy George from the States, Najoua, Nadia, Kamel from Tunisia, Cécile from France... and many others... thank you for being to my session and being ready to share my experience. I received a lot of positive feedback, and the discussion was rich. You can view the session by following the link of the recordings in the paragraph above. 

I was really wowed by the presentation of Amy Burvall  RemixED: The Power of Remix, Mushup, and Recontextualization in the classroom. I wouldn't tell you more about it just to make you curious to view her session.

...It took me some courage to decide and I said YES, just as Chuck Sandy said ' I had no idea what I was doing. I mean I learned how by doing it'. I still have a lot to learn, this one was a growth experience that I will remember!