The Grand Ballroom at The Omni Hotel slowly fills up during registration and breakfast at the 2009 Yale Education Leadership Conference. A glance at the registration table looks like around four hundred people have registered. There are six members of the press. Five in the traditional media including the New York Times and NPR, and the one lone blogger.

At registration, I see Mayor Finch of Bridgeport. I want to get a word in about the economic stimulus package and what projects he thinks are most important to his city. However, we both are rushing in other directions and don’t really get a chance to talk. That can wait for a follow-up email.

The attendees are seem to be fairly well mixed in terms of age and gender, although it does seem to be slightly skewed to twenty-somethings. Just about everyone is well dressed and almost all of the men are wearing suits. Many people seem to know one another from other conferences.

I fire up the laptop and find that there is no apparent open WiFi. However, as I look around, I don’t see any other laptops. One person has a blackberry. I don’t know if they use Twitter or if anyone else will Twitter the conference. Without WiFi my twittering will be a bit curtailed. My thumbs just aren’t that fast on the cellphone. I will be using the hashtag, #yelc09.

Along with the lack of WiFi there aren’t many outlets, and my power cord crosses an area where people walk. Just about everyone manages to trip over it. The room continues to fill up and soon New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein will present the opening keynote. Hopefully, I can slip out and get a WiFi connection and put up a post or two during lunch time.