Today in DPS109, we had a half day of professional development. Thanks to the leadership of Dr. Zoul, our assistant superintendent for teaching and learning we held our first ever/inaugural Ed Camp! From Jeff I will share some general descriptions of the Ed Camp concept:
Our Ed Camp was for nearly 400 teachers, educational support staff and administrators! On Twitter, please search for our District Hashtag, #Engage109 for some tweets about this 21st Century Professional Development experience.
Today, at Shepard Middle School from 12:50-1:00, Jeff provided a very fast overview of what an EdCamp is and what ours will look like. At each seat, there was an index card on each seat when you enter the gym. These were for staff to write down a session idea they would like to propose, if they were interested in doing so.
From teachers, staff, and administrators, we had 45 sessions – 15 each for each 30 minute session – proposed by our staff – an Ed Camp is by, for, and of “the people”!
We will had QR codes displayed throughout the school for people to scan on mobile devices (another cool use of technology). These linked to the Google Doc with all 45 sessions listed (room numbers and session times), so everyone had live/real time access to the various session topics from which to choose.
Work sessions at an Ed Camp are informal conversations, professional dialogues, brainstorming sessions, problem-solving conversations, idea exchanges, etc. They are not meant to be formal presentations with one person doing all the talking and presenting a PowerPoint of information. Although a person will volunteer to “host” a session s/he may not even be doing the most talking, but instead simply facilitating the discussion and managing the flow of conversation.
Dr. Zoul shared the following resources with staff about Ed Camps in general:
One-Minute Video Explaining EdCamps:
Why EdCamp?
Link to Upcoming EdCamps around the world:
Resources for Organizing an EdCamp: