EdCamp #classroomstyle

EdCamp Schedule

So EdCamps are the new thing! You hear about them all the time! You attend a conference or rather an "unconference" and set the agenda for learning THAT day! The facilitators build the agenda that day based on what the attendees want to learn. People raise their hands and make suggestions for what they are interested in learning. The topic is placed into a slot on the schedule and someone from the crowd then raises their hand and bravely says, "I can help faciliate that topic or I can teach people about that or I could talk about that with some help from other people." And then the process just keeps repeating itself until the schedule is full! The energy in the room was pretty exciting.

Before I attended my first EdCamp in the Twin Cities, I held my own in my classroom. My students have been working hard this year on Genius Hour and completing their passion projects. They have been obsessed with trying out new ways to show their learning and they had some real interests in learning things like Google Sites, Google Presentations, Scratch, Book Creator...just to name a few.  It was starting to get the point that some of the students who were "experts" in these areas were getting hounded for help on a daily basis. This was very affirming for them, but it also took away from THEIR work time. I asked the class if they would be interested in this "edcamp idea" and they overwhelmingly said YES! 

I decided to set the schedule on Monday, so that the students would be prepared for EdCampMosaic on Friday. I asked students what they wanted to learn, students made suggestions, other students volunteered to teach the topic and the schedule was set. Students then signed up for one session in each time slot. I broke the schedule up into 2 half hour sessions...but I ended up needing 45 minutes for each session.  THE STUDENTS LOVED IT!!! I could not even believe their engagement and I was blown away by what great instructors they were!

I had students who had planned lessons for their group, students who rotated among the group members to help each person, students who had prepared presentations for their group, students who exhibited extreme patience with their group members,  and students who loved the chance to be a leader in the classroom! It was just AMAZING! 

The students had a chance to learn about Google Sites, Google Presentations, Scratch, Google Drive organization, iMovie, Book Creator, Explain Everything, and Prezi! When we were done with the EdCamp, I asked for written feedback on the afternoon. This is a sample of what I received...

"EdCamp was so much fun! My favorite part was when kids I was teaching said 'awesome' or 'cool' after something I taught them!  It felt so good that they liked it."-Jonathan

"I liked how I got to share my knowledge with other."-Piper

"This was really fun and I liked how we all got to go at our own pace with our fellow student teacher. Thanks for letting us do this today."-Laurel

"Prezi was great because of how Saket taught it.  He taught the basics and would walk around and help you understand it." -Yash

"I learned how to see how many views looked on my website and he also taught me how to change the template and the size of the picture." -Rohit

Overall, EdCamp was a huge success and I will definitely do it again in my classroom! The students are even more excited to do it again!