AERA Today, and AERA Tomorrow
The annual meetings of the American Educational Research Association just wrapped up, an enormous event attended by something like 15,000 scholars from across the world. It was, as always, overwhelming. This time, however, in a mainly positive way thanks to the efforts of the incredibly attentive and creative Kris Renn . Since Kris worked so hard to make the 2013 AERA far better than AERAs of the past, I want to honor that by noting some of the best changes, and proposing some additional innovations for the future. The Latest & Greatest of AERA: 1. Free Wifi everywhere . This year, for the first time, in every space of the conference we were able to get online and participate in Twitter chats, send each other papers in real time, and convey follow-up thanks immediately. This was no easy feat, since the conference was spread across multiple hotels rather than a single convention center. The Wifi was easy to find, easy to access, and much much appreciated. 2. Twitter . ...