Beginning Again - Reflections on Edcamp San Jose

This weekend I helped to organize Edcamp San Jose, my first west-coast edcamp. Thanks to an amazing team of organizers, Travis Phelps, Diane Wharton, Mary Fran Lynch, Todd Feinberg and Matthew Cordes, and a great group of participants it was a wonderful day.  At the end of the day I was fortunate enough to attend Elana Leoni's session on writing and reflecting. She gave us time to write about the day and encouraged us to be creative with our writing style. 

What follows is the writing I did that afternoon.

She had been to many EdCamps before, she helped organize EdCamps before they were called EdCamps (remember EdubloggerconEast). Back home in Boston everyone knew her. Her EdCampBoston team had been together since 2011. Over 300 people attended that conference and they all knew Liz. But since moving to California, she had had to re-establish herself, start over, begin again. It was a humbling experience. “Don’t you know who I am” she would often find herself thinking. Of course you can’t say things like that out loud. And she knew the answer, they had no idea who she was.

EdcampSanJose was a way for her to start again. To meet new people, to find her place. But it is hard to start again, especially when you feel you have come so far. She knew it was good for her, but still it was hard. The day was cloudy. It had actually rained that morning, an uncommon event in her new hometown. As she started setting up tables and putting out food, she wondered how it would go, who would show up, what sessions would be proposed.

As the attendees arrived, she held out her hand, introduced herself, invited them to fill out a name tag and propose a session. She asked, “Have you been to an edcamp before?” The answer from many was “No, this is my first time.” She could hear the nervousness in their voices and the excitement too. Flipping into her encouraging mode, she assured them that they would have a great day. Reassuring herself as she said the words.

As the room filled it was finally time to do the icebreaker. She thought back to all of the times she had run this ice breaker as she looked out into the room. Holding the microphone and introducing the activity felt familiar (those who know her, know how much she loves a microphone). As people began to introduce themselves to each other, the volume in the room began to rise. The other organizers filled the board with sessions and day was about to begin.

Moving 3,000 miles across the country has not been easy. It has been exciting at times, exhausting, entertaining and fun, but it hasn’t been easy. Beginning again never is. But it can only be your first time once, the least I can do is enjoy the newness and make the most of it. I have to trust that I will find my place eventually. And the journey is half the fun. Isn’t it?

Thank you to all of the people who have welcomed me along the way!

Edcamp Boston Revelations and Reflections

Thanks to Lillie Marshall for this great Picture!

Yesterday I was privileged to help organize, along with Dan Callahan, Laura D'elia, Tracy Sokalosky and Karen Janowski,  the second annual edCamp Boston. It was a great day! We had a record attendance of over 200 educators and, by all accounts, it was a great success. Here are some of the things I took away with me.

About Edcamps:
This is my second time organizing edcamp Boston, but over the last few years I have organized 5 other unconferences. What strikes me the most about organizing these events is how easy it is to do. The sponsorship and food parts take work, but other than that, you build a schedule and the participants do the work. Really! I know many of us say this, but it really is true. Once the conference gets going, there isn't much that we have to do.

Glenn and Matt teach us about Edmodo

My favorite example of this was the Edmodo session yesterday where the presenter didn't show up. Everyone in the room looked at me. I am an organizer and I got to rock the awesome red organizer shirt, but I don't know anything about Edmodo. So I did what we edcamp organizers do best, I turned the question back to the room. Does anyone here know something about Edmodo. And two wonderful participants stepped up, Glenn Blakely and Matt Cronin,  and did a great job of explaining this tool. Which by the way I'm going to try with my 7th graders tomorrow.

I also discovered a new way to learn at an unconference. Rather than posting a session about something I know about and want to share, I posted sessions about something I want to learn about and discuss. I turned edcampBoston into edcampLiz. Fortunately for me, there were lots of smart folks there who could teach me what I wanted to learn.

Which right now is about iPads. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I am pretty obsessed with iPads right now. I want to thank everyone at the conference who helped push my learning and thinking on this topic. Here is what I came away with.

About iPads and...

Professional Development: 

I got a lot of suggestions about how to roll iPads out to my faculty. My favorite suggestion came from Sarah Edson. She suggested assigning my faculty some games to play on the iPad. I love the idea. I think I'm going to ask folks to sign up for either Words with Friends or, my new obsession, Draw Something. We will share our usernames and I will encourage folks to play at least one game with one other colleague over the summer. Not only will this teach iPad skills, but it is a good team building and connecting tool as well.

Apps:
I got some great App suggestions yesterday. By far my favorite is Reflection, a Mac App which acts like an Apple TV, allowing you to mirror your iPad on your laptop. You can try it for free for 20 minutes, or pay 14.00 to use it. I followed up about a site license and they offered me 60 licenses at $8 each. That is a lot cheaper than an Apple TV and it works (We have been having difficulty getting the Apple TV to work at my school.)!

Another great suggestion is the website, iPad as... put together by Tom Daccord and his edtechteacher team. They have compiled a list of Apps based on learning goals. Each App has a nice description. A wonderful resource for tools.

Other Apps I walked away with include Zite, a tool for aggregating all of your news feeds into categories, Pocket, a tool for saving websites to read later, and Logmein, a free tool to use your iPad as a wireless remote for your laptop.

Finally, and thanks if you are still reading this far into my post, I created an iPad Google Group to continue the conversation. If you are interested in discussing iPads, please join and share your thoughts and questions.

And of course I welcome your comments here. If you have rolled out iPads to your faculty and students, I would love to hear your suggestions on what are some good approaches for doing this.
Thanks in adavance!