What did I take home from EdCampPhilly?

Quick answer: A couple of stickers, a list of smart, resourceful people to follow on Twitter, and inspiration.

This past Saturday, I attended my first unconference at EdCamp Philly. It was amazing! There was so much going through my head that it has taken me until now to finally take everything in and process it. The aspect of EdCamp that stood out the most to me was seeing so many educators learners willing to take their day off to collaborate and discuss ideas and topics relating to our students and careers. That alone was inspiring and refreshing.

Once the schedule filled up, there were so many possibilities about where the day would lead. Because of other plans, I was able to catch half of the first session, half of the third and all of the fourth. My goal for the day was to get as much out of each session that I was able to catch.


10:00 Session
Grades are Stupid: Screencasting and Qualitative Formative Assessment
The part of this session that stood out the most to me was walking in and being asked to draw a jump-roping duck. Let's just say that caught me off guard but it got me wondering what to expect. Once the "Do Now" portion was complete, Reshan Richards (@reshanrichards) went into a demonstration of his Explain Everything app. From what I saw, the idea of screencasting and using it as an assessment tool is something that I'd like to try out. Definitely going to get the app and play around with it over the summer.

1:00 Session
Classroom Gymnastics- Flipping, BYOD, Paperless, 20% time, and more!
I wasn't able to catch the beginning of this session but Liz Calderwood (@liz1544), Kate Baker (@ktbkr4), Marc Seigel (@daretochem), Christina Roy (@smallbutfeisty) provided great ideas and resources. Last week, I mentioned that I'm looking forward to trying to implement a flipped classroom and/or 20% time in my classes next year and finding out what they are already doing in their classrooms will be a great starting point.

2:00 Session

Creating the schools we need vs maintaining the schools we have - A brainstorm on professional learning
This session was the only one that I was able to catch in its entirety and it was something else to see a roomful of teachers and administrators just throwing ideas back and forth. It shows me that there are forward-thinking people at all levels of education and gives me a little bit of faith in the system. Mike Ritzius (@mritzius) did a great job of getting the room going and getting out of the way. Although I didn't open up my mouth and talk during this session, I did hop on Twitter and posted some comments about what was being said and talked about.

3:00 Session
App Smackdown
The App Smackdown was completely unexpected. It was a great way to wrap everything up from the day and there are at least 2 or 3 sites/apps from the list that I'm going to test out. Even if only one of them helps me get better, it was absolutely worth it.

As a first-time, EdCamp Philly was unbelievably helpful. I still have quite a distance to travel in order to accomplish my goals for next year (and beyond) but making the connections that I did will make it a much easier journey.