In a few days, 500 educators from all over continent (and a few from further afield) will descend upon SLA for a three-day conference called EduCon. This whole thing started about two and a half years ago after EduBloggerCon at NECC, where 70 folks got together to have loosely constructed conversations. When it was over, I wrote about what was running through my mind and I foolished announced that we were going to host a conference on the weekend in between the NFL conference playoffs and the Super Bowl.

A month or two went by, and we were on the verge of cancelling the whole thing because, well, we were still forming a school and all. And then I got an email and John Pederson told me he’d already booked his ticket, and we figured we actually had to go ahead and do the thing.

That first year, we had about 250 folks. The next year, we were closing in on 400. This year, we’re going to top out at 500 folks… and we’re never getting bigger than that. EduCon has become for us at SLA an incredible part of what we do every year, and even as our school has grown in roughly the same numbers as the conference, it touches the school deeply and profoundly, as kids take a greater and greater role in hosting the conference. For our teachers, it provides a chance to share with the world the amazing things that I get to see in their classrooms every day, for our parents — who run the registration tables and slice a few hundred pieces of stromboli and serve hundreds of lunches — it gives them a sense of pride to see people come from all over to their child’s school, and for our kids, it gives them the chance to see themselves as active agents in a national — even international — dialogue about education and school. It is that moment that makes the conference worth the few gazillion hours we put into it every year.

But what also makes EduCon so incredibly worth it is the community that has been created around it. There are many, many educational conferences every year, most much bigger than EduCon, but we think we have something very special that happens over those three days. The conference is about the community of people and the ideas we share. It’s not a place for big speeches, it’s a place for well-thought conversation. It is a place for ideas, not stuff, and there isn’t much swag at all and there isn’t an exhibit floor. What there is, in abundance, is really smart people who care deeply about the future of education and how we all can make it better.

It is our hope, every year, that part of what makes EduCon so much fun is that it is in and of a school… All of us at SLA want EduCon to be a place where people who care about education can come together to debate, to listen, to talk, to learn together with and from each other. And to that end, what really makes EduCon special is the incredible good will that everyone comes with… whether it means pitching in to help clean up the cafe after cheesesteaks or making sure that the classrooms are straightened up after Sunday sessions or being willing to throw out an idea in a session because no one is there to just listen, EduCon works because people come to it knowing that they have to be a part of making it work.

And the cheesesteaks are pretty good too.

If you are coming to EduCon, make sure to say hi… I’ll be running around like a lunatic all weekend long, although, it is my goal to make it to at least two or three full sessions this year. If you aren’t coming to EduCon, we are again sharing the whole conference live. We’re using Elluminate this year (thank you, Steve Hargadon!) so feel free to listen in and take part.

And thank you to everyone who comes to the conference, who has worked to make it a success, who shows up with the good will and openness and idealism to believe that we can make schools better than they are. We can’t wait to see you all at school this week.