TCEA 2010 Information

What should we call a teacher-focused Unconference?

While researching my proposed Unconference topics, I discovered some bad news.

The bad news, the term, "Unconference" is associated with the description, "Geeky," at least by Wikipedia.

This association may present a hurdle in reaching teachers, this association validates my observation (at the NECC Unconference in San Antonio) that participants at seemed "out of touch" with educational reality,

I observed quite a few participants huddling in their own private spaces; I listened to discussions that seemed unrelated to the world of real teachers.

I asked as many teachers as I could about their views during the NECC Conference because I am interested in helping teachers.

In fact, I wrote a newsletter article based upon that experience and my informal research:

How to Talk to the IT "Guy or Gal": Pay Exquisite Attention to Detail

This also explains the "stupid name," EduBloggerCon. The original Geeky Unconference was called, "BloggerCon."

How can this name find traction with ordinary teachers?

But, what else can we call the Unconference.

Unconderence Models…

Models used to facilitate Unconferences have been called:

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Barcamp
• Birds of a Feather
• Code Camp
• Dotmocracy
• The Fishbowl
• FooCamp
• Knowledge Cafe
• Lightning Talks
• Nominal Group Technique
• Multi-voting
• Open Space Technology
• Pecha Kucha
• Speed Geeking
• World Cafe
• OSScamp

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

Worse, the term, "Unconference" only receives 3,600 Google searches a month. And, EduBloggerCon only receives 140 searches. The original term, "BloggerCon" receives only 240 searches a month.

In contrast, the term "Web 2.0 Conference" receives only 4, 400 searches a month.

Compare this to the 368,000 searches that the term "Web 2.0" receives.

Divide these numbers by 50, since TCEA is Texas-focused; and then divide by 100, since one percent of visitors might respond to our ad, and we have limited opportunity to connect with teachers by using ads like Google Adsense.

So, what do we call a conference for teachers so that the name of the conference will attract teachers?

It is a basic tenet of advertising that effective ads and effective marketing promotions resonate with the target audience. The customary description for this is "People like me…" "Are these people like me, people who understand me?"

So, what is a name that that we can use to replace "Unconference" both…