(Am I supposed to use some kind of formal language to nominate? Do Robert’s Rules apply here? Better play it safe…)

Hear ye, hear ye! I hereby heretofore nominate Twitter Math Camp as the Best Open Conference of 2012 in the Edublog Awards.

After all, Twitter Math Camp not only had its own hashtag, #TMC12 but also inspired #twitterjealousycamp by those who weren’t with us.

Twitter Math Camp consisted of a scrappy group of 40 math teachers from across the Americas. We gathered together in a geographically favorable city (St. Louis, baby!) for three-and-a-half amazing days of learning. That’s us, below.

[ED – Lisa reminds me about press for TMC] This amazing conference attracted accolades including Ed Tech Researcher Blog calling us the “Best Twitterblogosphere” and then following up with a post about Twitter Math Camp’s powerful model of teacher-led PD.

twitter math camp group photo
When most of your Twitter feed is with you, checking Twitter becomes an almost empty action.

Many of us blogged about #TMC12 on returning home. Our words in the days following St. Louis speak volumes.

Julie Reulbach said:

When trying to explain this conference to my non-teaching friends, I tell them. ”Think about the best teachers that you ever had. Put them all in one room. Ask them to all tell you their best ideas and strategies. Listen in awe. Take tons of notes. Learn from the best.”

We invented a new type of session, called “My Favorite…”. I think the attendees would vote Elissa Miller’s idea about Two Nice Things as the best tip of these sessions. Of the My Favorite format, she says:

Best session idea goes to … My Favorites because I’m pretty sure we could have an entire conference based on that alone and I felt like it was blog reading come to life like a book of pop up bloggers except real.

Sam Shah mused about the ideas we shared:

Whether it be how to get cheap giant whiteboards and use them effectively in the classroom, to saying “What questions do you have?” instead of “Any questions?”, to being consistent in asking a kid who says something disparaging to someone else say “two nice things about them… go!”

Lisa Henry (the primary organizer) called Twitter Math Camp the “Best PD Ever!“:

3 ½ days of working on Exeter Math Problem Sets and sharing with each other. (Here’s the program) We had incredible presentations on a variety of topics. We shared many of our favorite teaching related things – so much so that we adjusted the schedule and scrapped the problem working session on Sunday morning for an hour and a half of additional my favorite things to share.