So I am a little bit in my feelings. Tonight as I wrapped up AERA 2023 and was posting about it on LinkedIn. I realize that this year marks my 10th anniversary of attending this annual meeting of educational researchers.

I do not know why I feel it is special, the 10th anniversary. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that 10 years ago, I just embarked in this adventure (on my own – without my advisor – self-funded) without any clear idea of what I was doing but I just did it.

I remember a few months before AERA 2013 my advisor was talking to me about conferences and she told me: “AERA is where Sweller goes to present about Cognitive Load Theory. It is a hard to get accepted. But if you are doing education research, that is where you want to go.” I do not know why but my immediate thought was: “well that is exactly were I am going to go.” I went home and I told my partner: “I want to go to AERA, I need to invest on my professional development.” Without hesitation, he just said: Sounds like a plan!

This is the blog post I wrote after attending AERA 2013 In San Francisco: AERA 2013: First Impressions

BTW, in my post from 2013 I wrote this “The AERA program was massive! Thankfully, I had browsed through the online program and downloaded my schedule to the mobile app before my arrival to San Francisco.” Dear AERA can we go back to whatever app we used in 2013? The App this year was awful!

Here are other blogs posts I have written about AERA throughout the years:

• This is the blog post after AERA 2014 (Philadelphia): AERA2014 — The Power of Education Research
• This is the blog post after AERA 2015 (Chicago): EERA & #AERA15: My Two Cents
• On December 2015, I gave birth to my son. I was not initially planning to attend AERA 2016 but a dear friend and colleague asked me to moderate a panel and so I made my way to Washington DC (It was the first time I travel after having my son): The “Quick Update” Post
• I guess I did not blog for AERA 2017 (San Antonio), AERA 2018 (New York), and AERA 2019 (Toronto). But I was there lol
• AERA 2020 was cancelled. I was really looking forward to San Francisco but glad that the conference was cancelled.
• Here is the blog post for AERA 2021, which was virtual: #AERA21: Session Info, iPoster, and Published Paper
• Last year, AERA was in San Diego. The very first time in a post-pandemic times: Resources from #AERA22 #AERA2022

During AERA 2015, I participated in the Division C – Early Career Mentoring Program. I met some pretty awesome scholars as part of the program. Here is a blog post about it: New Faculty Mentoring Program: 2015 Cohort [Research, Teaching, Collaboration, & Support] #AERA15 #AERADivC. This year during AERA 2023, I had the opportunity to connect with colleague Bodong Chen, who in addition to his amazing scholarly work, is genuinely a wonderful person. The first thing he said to me when saw each other was: “Remember we met here in Chicago 8 years ago in the mentoring program!”

This has been a journey. Somehow in the massive sea of people that is AERA, I have created my own community and network.

Some highlights of AERA 2023:

• The first three nights in Chicago for the conference, I had dinners in which we (me and other who were with me) just spoke Spanish and that was pretty freaking awesome!
• Meeting colleagues from Universidad de Sevilla (Thanks to Jeff Carpenter): Paula Marcelo-Martinez, Carlos Marcelo, and Paulino Murillo. In one dinner outing we enjoyed some Chicago style pizza together, It was pretty awesome to do the Chicago style pizza with colleagues from Spain. Paula and Carlos are doing some research on Edu Influencers in Spain: Here are slides from their presentation titled “Don’t call me an influencer: New digital artisans in education.”
• Definitely getting to catch up with Bodong in person for the first time in a long time.
• Presenting two awards at the SIG Instructional Technology business meeting and starting in my role as program chair (please submit to SIG IT and sign up to review!)
• Presenting work that colleague Maria Luna-Thomas and I already published on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Digital Praxis: tiny.utk.edu/CRP_AERA23
• Attending the University of Canterbury breakfast on Sunday morning and experiencing a Māori start of the day, Karakia. Thank you for the invite Cheryl Brown!
• Catching up with doctoral students from Old Dominion University (Go Monarchs)!
• Having Kui as discussant for my paper session!
• Presenting a paper session on some part of the work that I started with Dr. Lina Gomez-Vasquez and our teams of graduate and undergraduate researchers on the use of digital networks by academics in higher education.
• Getting to see so many friends, colleagues, and connections.

Two resources that I want to add to this blog post because I can come back to them later:

• Field Day Learning Games (all Open Access): https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu
• AERA Hyflex Published Articles: Click on this link