The whirlwind previously known as yesterday came to a fluttering, exhausted DEAD STOP for me just after midnight, well past my usual bedtime. I couldn’t shake the thought that I somehow had something to do, but in the end, it didn’t matter. At 12:08 am, I  pulled the pin on the Krebstar 2000 Super Sleepmatic Hand Grenade and I was unconscious within minutes. Precisely 6 hours later, I woke up and read Mary Beth Hertz’ fantastic recap of her first day at Educon, and it hit me – craaaaaap – I gotta blog! :)

Checked into the Windsor Suites and found my hotel room had more closets and storage space than my HOUSE, a full kitchen, and sliders to a small patio with a nice view off the 11th floor. Awesome! Shame that most of the time I’ll be here, I’ll be asleep…

Met up with some friends including Julie LaChance, Louise Maine, Alice Barr, Sarah Sutter, Gerald Aungst and some new friends at the Second Life Meets Real Life Dinner. My Cheesy Bacon Cheeseburger came through exactly as ordered, with extra cholesterol. The gastronomical Super Bowl known as Eating at Educon had begun in earnest.

The cold, blustery walk to Panel Discussion @ The Franklin Institute — “What is Smart?” was mercifully quick and in no time we were all enjoying the prototypical Educon kickoff, a thought-provoking discussion by a distinguished group of [I'm gonna say it - really smart] folks with passion for education. The discussion was fantastic, and so intense that blogging or tweeting didn’t seem like the right call. So I didn’t. I just let it all soak in, still exhausted from leading a day-long workshop exploring the intersection of learning, teaching, student engagement & Web 2.0 tools with educators from several  NJ vocational-technical high schools & the Atlantic County Alternative High School … all members of the South Jersey Regional Center for Service Learning, a group I’ve been advising on social media strategy and technology professional development.

Anyway, after taking a variety of crappy pics (here’s one) the planetarium reception was a chance to see many friends I hadn’t in a while (and take more crappy pics, despite the expert tutelage of my Photo-Sensei, Sarah Sutter. (Anyone seen my Samurai sword? I need to fall on it. MY. SKILL. IS. NOT. ENOUGH.) It was awesome though connecting with everyone, some old friends, some new, some I was meeting for the first time. I was wiped but knew I had to stick around nearly to the end, which I did.

Walking back to the hotel with Sarah and Louise, my Photo-Sensei tried to continue my schooling, casually stopping and snapping portrait-quality pics. I give up. I might have a Nikon D5000 someday but it’s not the equipment anyway, I’ll never have her skill…

Back in the room, I caught up on email and started looking at the session schedule – the new website is SO amazing. You can be overwhelmed with session choices even faster now. :) Hit the wall just after midnight and called it a day.

My Educon Day 0 was good, but could have been GREAT if I’d spent the day at the Science Leadership Academy with so many others, but, it just wasn’t in the cards. The next two days are going to be awesome – I’ve got nothing to do but learn – no presentations, no commitments, hell, even my lesson plans are done – so, Educon? BRING IT.

-kj-