I speak at a lot of conferences. It is a rare opportunity when I am able to attend a conference without the responsibility of a keynote or facilitating several sessions. Last week, I was able to attend MiamiDevice, a first year conference put on by Felix and his Saint Stephens Episcopal School team in Coconut Grove, Florida.

There were many fantastic breakout sessions, but the unconference opportunities (as most of the time) made the experience fantastic!

Below are my “notes”. Yes, not on a traditional yellow notepad, that I will never look at again or am unlikely to share with anyone else. I enjoy taking notes in a variety of ways, making sure that they are SHAREABLE.  My notes come in form of tweets, which I chose to curate from my and other attendees Twitter feed (#miamidevice hashtag) and connect with each other via Storify. My Notes can be in form of  sketchnotes from sessions or  photos shot to freeze a moment in time to remind me of the relationships started or strengthened.

Wesley’ Fryer‘s session Help Students Show What They Know with Media

Tablets, smartphones and computers should not be used by students just to CONSUME media: Students should regularly use digital devices to “show what they know” with media.” In this session we will view and discuss different examples of student multimedia projects created by students including narrated art/photo projects, narrated slideshow/screencasts, Quick-edit videos, visual notes, and GeoMap projects. Link to examples and available tools to create each media product on the Mapping Media website: http://maps.playingwithmedia.com

Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith session: The Power of Crowdsourced Learning

Looking for ideas you can use in your classroom tomorrow? Time to learn how to crowdsource innovative teaching ideas in this hands-on, participant driven workshop. In this session, you will learn how to use the crowd to curate professional development and game-changing lessons that you can use in your classroom right away. For even more fun, we will ask the best ideas of the day to be on an EduSlam episode.

Here are my  tweets from the session Culture of Selfies with Jeremy Macdonald strung together via Storify.

Say cheese! Today’s over-saturation of mobile technology has created a culture of selfies. Though common (yet sometimes annoying), the selfie demonstrates the amplifying power of technology in today’s world. While the word “selfie” is fairly new, the idea and its implications are centuries old. Come explore the world of selfies, learn the history, the implications, and how we can leverage this new(ish) cultural phenomenon to create more meaningful learning in our classrooms and encourage more profound sharing of our ideas and ourselves.

Anibal was recording many short interviews, which you can view on his YouTube Channel.

with Susan Bearden

with Wes Fryer

and having fun with documenting our culture of selfies

I presented a session on Sketchnoting and was thrilled to see participants be so excited and eager to try

Thank you Craig Badura @mrbadura for the audience perspective of the room…

Thank you Greg Kulowiec @gregkulowiec for the “artistic” perspective and angle

Thank you Tony Vincent @tonyvincent for and appsmashing Infopic.

Here are a few of my images, documenting the session.

  I was especially thrilled to see that sketchnoting practice was not over after the session ended, nor limited to the physical attendees.