For those of you who have not heard, EdCamp is a "un-conference" being organized around the country by educators like us. It is a one day event and I have to say is the best PD I have ever been to. Here is the premise...educators gather together for a day of sharing....only it is much more than that. At the start of the day, usually over coffee, doughnuts, etc. a brainstorming session is held The attendees write ideas for possible sessions down on butcher paper. Those in attendance who are willing to facilitate a session, sign up to do so next to the session they want to facilitate. Yep there are no canned presentations, no sales pitches, etc. Then attendees vote for the sessions they would like to attend. They are given 3 stickers and they place them next to their top three. Then the group moves into a opening session, usually with a keynote speaker in the field of education, etc. While the keynote is happening, the organizers set the schedule based on the sessions that received the most votes. Once the sessions are set, the attendees decide which sessions they want to attend. The person facilitating is not a presenter they just get the conversation rolling. The best thing is that these sessions subscribe to the "law of two feet" meaning if you go into a session and it is not meeting your needs/expectations, you get up and go to another one..no hard feelings. There have been EdCamps all over the country including the very first one held in Philadelphia in 2010. There is even one scheduled for the Netherlands next month. The event is entirely free to attendees thanks to sponsors who provide the facility, meals/snacks/drinks, door prizes, etc.
Yesterday, I attended EdCampSC, the first EdCamp to be held in South Carolina. It was held at Sullivan Middle School (kudos to them and to Rock Hill Schools for hosting this event) in Rock Hill, SC just outside of Charlotte. It was a 2 hour drive for me, which meant I had to get up around 5am on my day off to get there in time for the 8:30am start. Bleary-eyed with my travel mug of coffee I set out for Rock Hill. Once i got close to my destination, I began to see signs and volunteers directing traffic into the school. More volunteers greeted me, and pointed the way to the registration table where I was greeted warmly, given a schedule sheet with last minute notes and a name tag and sent off to the cafeteria for coffee and doughnuts. I immediately saw a few familiar faces from the Upstate Technology Conference I presented/volunteered at in Greenville in July including Chris Craft (@crafty184) whom I heard speak at UTC. I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and made my way to a table of educators and introduced myself. I found out they were new to EdCamp as well so we all felt a little more comfortable and chatted about what we were excited about for the day. Soon an announcement was made about the huge sheets of paper around the room. It was time to start brainstorming session ideas. As I walked from table to table I not only realized there were going to be some amazing sessions, but I also saw a lot of common themes---technology, student engagement, Common Core, BYOD and many more. I did not feel ready to facilitate a session (although looking back, I totally should have....but there is always next year), so I just looked at the ideas for the sessions and started to decide which ones I was definitely voting for . I knew it was going to be hard to pick just 3.
Soon we were headed into the auditorium for the keynote. Eric Sheninger, the principal at New Milford HS and NASSP National Digital Principal Award recipient in 2012 delivered his keynote via Skype. How cool was that. He had lots of encouraging words for us as educators and encouraged us to use social media to make our voices heard and to share ideas with one another. Once the keynote was over, the schedule was announced and we headed to our sessions. I chose "Twitter in the Classroom" as my first session, facilitated by @NFLafve. What a great session to kick off with. The participants ranged from a Kindergarten teacher to a University Professor. I was amazed as I listened to these educators share how Twitters was allowing them to get their students engaged, including kids as young as 5. Other issues that cropped up in our discussions were Twitter and other platforms being blocked in our district, using apps such as FakeTweetBuilder.com and addressing BYOD and parents security fears/issues. It was a great discussion and I came away with a lot of new knowledge on Twitter as well as a renewed determination to make it work in my classroom. For the second session I chose "Google Hangouts" and while I did glean some new info from this session, " but after discovering the limitations of Google Hangouts on my iPad, I failed to use the law of "Two Feet" to find another session, and chose instead to sit and GChat with a fellow blogger/friend who could not attend the conference, and also tweeted until the session ended. Before the final session, we were fed a yummy lunch sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcout and I did some more networking. My last session was very animated and was on a topic that I could relate to "What to Do when Students have No Tech at Home." It was facilitated by @derekmcquiston a teacher and instructional technology specialist for Rock Hill SD. He was funny and energetic and quite animated and kept the conversation rolling. The group discussed the ideas for getting devices in the hands of students at home through community initiatives with ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner (note to self, talk to folks about getting Charter to replicate some of the programs these other ISPs in othere cities have done, for our Free/Reduced lunch students here in Greenville.) We also shared ideas for alternate assignments, finding open computer time before, during and after school for these students and using apps that can be accessed on a smartphone (we surmised that more and more parents had them). So it was about getting students access not just devices. I had to admit, I was a little envious (okay A LOT) hearing these teachers from Rock Hill talk about their 1:1 classrooms (RHSD has gone completely 1:1 for grades 4-8) but those teachers also faced issues with students not being able to take the devices home due to parents not attending mandatory meetings or buying the required insurance. I was also encouraged to hear all the talk about teaching students to be good digital citizens. The day ended with a closing session where were were told that the official conference hashtag #edcampsc was trending on Twitter! What a great note to end on...but yet, there was more! Door prizes (of which I dd not win) and also a call to spread the word to colleagues that EdCampSC would return again next year, and also that volunteers were needed. It was a great day and a HUGE shout out to the main organizers/co-founders of EdCampSC, LaToya Dixon (@latoyadixon5) and Mike Waiksnis (@mwaiksnis) two principals in Rock Hill SD. History was made in Rock Hill yesterday and it would not have been made without them and their planning team!
Whew! That was long...but I wanted you to get a feel for what the EdCamp movement is all about. I will leave you with a tweet from Chris Byerle one of the many SC educators in attendance yesterday...says it all.
In fact, one of the highs of my day was meeting so many people in Education in the Carolinas that I follow on Twitter as well as picking up quite a few new followers myself.
Whew- that was long, but I wanted to Skype his
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