I attended my very first Edcamp with the Edcamp FWTX planning crew this past weekend and it was such an exciting and fun way to spend a Saturday: learning with and from passionate professionals. It was yet another confirmation of my personality color (green) that does indicate that work is play and play is work. My favorite parts of work make me giddy!
Edcamp Waller was such a great experience on so many levels. As people asked me why I attended, I told them I was there to learn and snoop. The learning was top notch as teachers got the opportunity to share expertise and groups were able to sit down and share, ask questions, brainstorm and think. Here is a quick run down of the sessions I attended:
Elementary App Sharing - this was probably one of the more overwhelming sessions and of course it was the first one I chose to attend. Overwhelming that it was attended by highly practiced and proficient educators that had great things to share. As an administrator not having the classroom experience with these devices (they didn't exist in the classroom when I taught) I tried to focus my participation, questions and take aways upon how I can help build capacity with my teachers to get them more comfortable using devices/apps in their room for something more than a glorified worksheet. I can say for every app shared, the focus was on meaningful application and sharing of student learning or a novel resource to get kids engaged in meaningful. Key take away(s): If you value technology in the classroom, you must be willing to invest the time to let kids "play" with it. If we want to foster creativity in our students to show what they know, we have to be able to let go of the reins. We do not have the time or ability (if we want to maintain any kind of life balance) to be an expert on all the options.
Here is a quick list and description from my notes:
Key take away(s) - we have to know ourselves well and take the opportunity to be reflective to get the best out of our time in the classroom or at school. Often times we lose touch with our passions and purpose as we work through our day to day classroom routines. It is important that we stay in touch with and true to ourselves!
Global/Connected Learning - This was a presentation from @MattBGomez, kindergarten teacher in Plano ISD. I honestly didn't take a whole lot of notes on this one because I was just amazed by the things Kindergarters were doing on Twitter, so I'm going to just share my tweets below and Matt's website (www.MattBGomez.com).
Genius Hour - Cool experience sharing, discussion and brainstorming time as @iamkesler shared his passion for allowing students to pursue learning that is valuable to them. The idea is based up on the a mixing of Google's 20% time and "fedex" days where one is required to "deliver" some sort of product. He shared some of the issues he tackled and there was opportunity for idea sharing and discussion in each of these areas: how to make time, modified behavior plans and teaching with urgency. This idea reminded me very much of a Type III project under the Renzulli gifted education model. I think this idea has possibilities to begin as an after school club or as an EOY project/fair and then grow from there.
Key take away(s): allowing students the opportunity to engage in something they are passionate about will build powerful background knowledge, allow for relevant content and process connections and provide a quality learning experience.
Snooping was the other purpose for the visit. Our @EdcampFWTX team had the great opportunity to learn from the @EdcampWaller team of things to do as well as the things not to do. The #Techninjas and the rest of the @EdcampWaller crew. I think it got everyone excited and motivated to continue to get things planned and in place for Edcamp Fort Worth on July 27th.
Finally, it was a great opportunity to meet brilliant education minds in person. For an introvert like me, Twitter is a great equalizer as far as networking goes. It makes those face to face, more social interactions much easier because their is already an established relationship versus going into something "cold." I imagined it would be something like this:
Edcamp Waller was such a great experience on so many levels. As people asked me why I attended, I told them I was there to learn and snoop. The learning was top notch as teachers got the opportunity to share expertise and groups were able to sit down and share, ask questions, brainstorm and think. Here is a quick run down of the sessions I attended:
Elementary App Sharing - this was probably one of the more overwhelming sessions and of course it was the first one I chose to attend. Overwhelming that it was attended by highly practiced and proficient educators that had great things to share. As an administrator not having the classroom experience with these devices (they didn't exist in the classroom when I taught) I tried to focus my participation, questions and take aways upon how I can help build capacity with my teachers to get them more comfortable using devices/apps in their room for something more than a glorified worksheet. I can say for every app shared, the focus was on meaningful application and sharing of student learning or a novel resource to get kids engaged in meaningful. Key take away(s): If you value technology in the classroom, you must be willing to invest the time to let kids "play" with it. If we want to foster creativity in our students to show what they know, we have to be able to let go of the reins. We do not have the time or ability (if we want to maintain any kind of life balance) to be an expert on all the options.
Here is a quick list and description from my notes:
- Presentation apps - Here are a batch of apps discussed - Haiku deck, Screen Chomp, Mad Lips, Explain Everything
- Learning - Endless ABC - vocabulary development; Writing Prompts - an Urban Spoon like app for writing prompts, pretty cool; Big Cat Books- small batch of free books with numerous reading support options
- Note taking - Slingnote - a true "cut & paste" type app that provides a duel internet/note page view that you can cut and drag information and images. Great for research for 2nd grade and up.
- Classroom Management - Too Noisy - this is the equivalent of that cool stop light that you would see in the cafeteria that would make more noise when it got too noisy.
- Where are your content, professional and personal passions?
- Can creativity be developed? - perked some interesting discussion of what creativity is and isn't as well as what happens to creativity over time.
- It doesn't matter how much is taught, but how much is received. Do you agree?
- Do you have any lessons you could sell tickets to?
- What is your purpose in education?” And the answer can’t be, “It’s for the kids!”
- Can enthusiasm be faked?
- It doesn't matter how much is taught. What matters is how much is learned! What does this mean to you?
Key take away(s) - we have to know ourselves well and take the opportunity to be reflective to get the best out of our time in the classroom or at school. Often times we lose touch with our passions and purpose as we work through our day to day classroom routines. It is important that we stay in touch with and true to ourselves!
Global/Connected Learning - This was a presentation from @MattBGomez, kindergarten teacher in Plano ISD. I honestly didn't take a whole lot of notes on this one because I was just amazed by the things Kindergarters were doing on Twitter, so I'm going to just share my tweets below and Matt's website (www.MattBGomez.com).
- "Tweets as shared writing as well as reflective response! Yes, elementary kids can do this! Awesome!!! #EdCampWaller #txed #txidea" - I've encouraged staff to use Twitter during professional development as reflective response, kids can do this, too! Tweets (140 characters) is perfectly appropriate for K/1 students as a shared writing activity and communication with others locally and globally
- "The more you connect, capacity for empathy is increased #edcampwaller" - questions and information being shared between Kindergarten classrooms acrooss the world is creating thoughtful and empathetic citizens and learners. The world needs more Kindergarten-like love!!
- "Twitter, connectedness, empathy lead to inquiry based learning and research and excited learners! #edcampwaller" - when you have students fighting over informational text in a research center and/or library, something important, powerful and meaningful is happening.
Genius Hour - Cool experience sharing, discussion and brainstorming time as @iamkesler shared his passion for allowing students to pursue learning that is valuable to them. The idea is based up on the a mixing of Google's 20% time and "fedex" days where one is required to "deliver" some sort of product. He shared some of the issues he tackled and there was opportunity for idea sharing and discussion in each of these areas: how to make time, modified behavior plans and teaching with urgency. This idea reminded me very much of a Type III project under the Renzulli gifted education model. I think this idea has possibilities to begin as an after school club or as an EOY project/fair and then grow from there.
Key take away(s): allowing students the opportunity to engage in something they are passionate about will build powerful background knowledge, allow for relevant content and process connections and provide a quality learning experience.
Snooping was the other purpose for the visit. Our @EdcampFWTX team had the great opportunity to learn from the @EdcampWaller team of things to do as well as the things not to do. The #Techninjas and the rest of the @EdcampWaller crew. I think it got everyone excited and motivated to continue to get things planned and in place for Edcamp Fort Worth on July 27th.
Finally, it was a great opportunity to meet brilliant education minds in person. For an introvert like me, Twitter is a great equalizer as far as networking goes. It makes those face to face, more social interactions much easier because their is already an established relationship versus going into something "cold." I imagined it would be something like this:
It didn't disappoint!