What is the role of a conference?

It seems that conferences today aren't so much about the speakers and the content as they are about the f2fmeetings that take place. Follow along on twitter for awhile and you realize that if you don't attend a major conference to meet f2f or don't take part in some of the summer learning events, you will soon be like a 3rd person on a date. F2f meetings and interactions still drive the conversations and discussions, grease the wheels and determine the voices. It just happens across time and space now and, if you aren't able to take part, soon regulates you to watch from the outside.

Is retweeting the new blogging?

It seems that there is an abundance of retweeting and YouTube sharing these days but not as much original content. Is popularity determined by number of tweets? Doesn't everyone have a Mashable account to look at? I know it's easier to retweet than to write but maybe we need to reexamine what were doing. Don't we push our students to think and ponder not just copy and paste?

Does life stage impact online activity?

As I spend time online, it strikes me that there are particular demographics of educators who have a higher participation than others. Could this be a factor in what we see happening in the new explosion of online social networking? If it is true that a large percentage of teachers are in the age group where they are raising families, does this impact the time they have to devote to other activities such as developing online networks? Will those who have jumped into the online networking be able to continue to devote the current time online? Does one's life stage impact social networking? Should this be seen as a detrimental to their careers?

Is it up for discussion?

Lately there has been a great push by new adopters of social networking and other technologies to use, use, use. This fire is being fanned by a number of higher-profile bloggers and tweeters, who are outside of public K -12 education, who are constantly promoting "new data" about the need to "engage youth". Curiously absent are the early adopters who, at one point, were the promoters of technology adoption or a change from technology adoption to learning environments (inquiry, flipped classroom, STEM). Will these next wave of adopters realize that constant online networking doesn't allow for long-term development of ideas and integration in the classroom and being networked in analogous with being a better teacher?