Hi Shandy!
First, welcome to Canvas and the Canvas Community!
Last year's InstructureCon was the first time they experimented with the concept of an "Unconference". It is called an "unconference" because there is no set agenda. Instead, participants throw out topic ideas, then they vote on the top 4 or six topics (can't remember the number exactly), find champions for those topics, and everybody bugs out to separate meeting rooms for their topics of choice. The topic discussions are typically 2+ hours long, and everybody participates by sharing ideas, asking questions, answering questions etc. Then everybody rotates out to the next topic session of choice. The Unconference is held all day during the day of Pre-conference sessions at InstructureCon.
In other words, it is a partially organized and directed series of networking sessions, which is typically one of the most valuable activities at any conference.
Oh yah, and they are a hoot, they're free, and you get lunch! Life is good!
As a Canvas newbie, I strongly recommend that you attend InstructureCon 2016 if you can. We first migrated to Canvas in 2012, our college had not yet even been hooked up with its instance of Canvas, and my office partner and I attended InstCon '12. Best decision we could have made. We went there knowing next to nothing about Canvas, and left there as knowledgeable Canvas devotees. We have gone every year since.
I hope this helps.
Agent K