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Welcome to the first post of what is sure to be an onslaught from the 2005 Building Learning Communities conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

I’m here with a few co-workers and it didn’t take long for the world to start feeling a little smaller. I stopped by the front desk to ask how I would get to Fenway because Jon and I were thinking about trying to get into a Red Sox game. The man behind me creeped up and said that he was considering doing the same and wanted to eavesdrop. We began talking and soon I learned that he was a teacher and vice-principal from Liverpool. I mentioned that last year at this conference I spent a significant amount of time with an attendee from Liverpool named Paul. Turns out Mike came to the conference with him. Small world, eh?

The conference had a little meet and greet at the hotel this evening. While there, I was reunited with Paul, re-met Jim Wenzloff who I’ve communicated with via email a few times, was introduced to Chris (and her class’s blog), ran into Loretta (a teacher from Chicago who attended last year), and was introduced to tomorrow’s keynote speaker Christopher Tan. I saw from a distance Diane Lewis, Alan November, Will Richardson and several other presenters whom I recognized but didn’t get a chance to say hello to yet.

That’s one of the best things about this conference; the presenters are so accessible to the attendees. At NECC, the odds of me being able to talk to Joel Barker were about 1 in 1000 (unless I stood in line to have in sign a book I guess). Same thing goes for smaller presenters. For example, if I wanted to follow up with Will on a point he made, the only way I’d be able to mention it to him would be to stay after the session ended and try to approach him as he cleaned up and cleared out. Not exactly the ideal time. It’s not that he wouldn’t have wanted to talk or that the questions would have bothered him, it’s just that the conference was so big that there wouldn’t be an opportunity to have a casual conversation. I did run into him in the hall at one point, and we basically agreed to just talk here instead!

What’s great about this conference is that you’ll wind up sharing a breakfast table with Alan, or sitting next to Christopher on a bus. You may run into Diane at the bar because for the most part everyone stays in the same hotel. The name of the conference is appropriate because this conference truly feels like it builds it’s own little learning community. I’m really looking forward to some great presentations and even better conversations.

After the meet and greet, Jon and I met up with Mike, the guy from Liverpool who I met at the front desk. We all took the “T” out to Fenway and feebly tried to get some tickets. When that failed, we grabbed a beer, enjoyed a decent meal and exchanged information regarding the intricacies of Cricket and Baseball. It was quite an enjoyable evening and a nice ‘international’ way to start things off.

One final little nugget for all of you readers. If I remember correctly, this conference was where I really first drank the blogging Kool Aid. I’d been following a few blogs and had a surface understanding of them, but the conversations I had here really demonstrated to me the tremendous opportunities blogging creates. I created my first authentic blog entries here, mostly reflections about the various workshops I attended and answers to some of the questions that Alan continues to pose. I remember spending huge chunks of evening hotel time typing up my thoughts and sharing them with the other attendees. No question, that was when I realized just how much I had missed writing over the last few years and once that spark started blazing, there was no way it was going out any time soon. It wasn’t long after that I registered Teach42.com.

I wonder how many new bloggers and podcasters will leave this conference inspired the way I was last year?

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