In the end, my blog post was more about my own insecurities and some of attempt to present an alternative viewpoint to conference posts dominated by who was being spoken with as opposed to what was being spoken about. But I’m not the only one who’s made this observation. David Jakes made a similar observation in his highly-commented-on post when he wrote:

Take Educon 2.0. It’s Friday and if you were there, you had the opportunity to visit the kids and teachers of the Science Leadership Academy. However, most stayed in the library bantering about Twitter and finally meeting those people in real life that had become some important in their digital one. What a missed opportunity to observe a truly unique school.

It is just that I would not want the awesome things we can create together online to be of lesser value than more traditional exchanges of information and ideas when f2f. This is new ground for education (still) and we don’t need to hang on to old perceptions to make it more valuable. Online network communication of the type experienced in the education sphere is a high value commodity just as is.

As you say meeting f2f is cherry on the cake. The main reason opportunities arise from f2f meetings is because provide extra opportunities to engage more deeply in the conversations. While I have meet several people f2f I also realize majority in my network I will never get an opportunity to meet. The downside of my interactions online have increased my awareness of how geographically isolated I am here in Perth.

But the comment that I highlighted under your post seemed to confirm my misgivings and there seems to be an undercurrent of that point of view in some of the other posts that I referenced.

Hmmm… that offer you mentioned back at your blog may need some serious consideration. How old are Grade Fives?

However, sometimes a f2f gels people. Jo McLeay and I were sort of passing connections. We followed each other’s tweets and occasionally commented about them. I really doubt that much would have come of that. Meeting at NECC strengthened our relationship enough for us to say we wanted to work together. Sometimes, you just need to meet to get a connection. And that’s what NECC did for me.

I suppose I feel somewhat threatened by the fact that many edubloggers have a heightened awareness of each other after meeting f2f and that voices like mine will fall out of the conversations. However, if someone will judge a blog post on who wrote it rather than the ideas it is proposing, then maybe I’d be better off without that interaction. I suppose that my discomfort just means that I need to be a bit more ruthless about who on my network is providing me with authentic food for thought. And if my words aren’t cutting the mustard for others, then maybe they should be hitting “unsubscribe” to TGZ button.

I greatly value my online colleagues but there is no denying that f2f contact has the possibility of being more in-depth, or certainly more extensive. I don’t feel it’s essential to meet those with whom I communicate, but lie you feel it would be the cherry on the cake, and a most welcome opportunity. I’d hate to think of us relying on online communication – I think we need both sorts.