I spent Saturday in Los Angeles at EdCampLA, an un-conference. This was a professional development opportunity put on by a group of teachers and sponsored by various companies. What makes it an un-conference is that there was no pre-set program of presentations. In the morning, there is an empty session board and a pile of index cards. Participants decide what sessions they would like to present (if any), then write it up on an index card and post it on the schedule board.
I rode up with Holly Clark, formerly of Carmel Valley Middle School, currently an administrator at San Diego Jewish Academy. The session was held at the Center for Early Education, in West Hollywood. We got there a little before 8:00, and the schedule board was empty. By 8:45 the board was full and the organizers had opened up another room for sessions. After a few introductions in the gym (which served as the central location for the day), we chose the sessions we wanted to attend and moved out.
The first session I attended was a discussion about flipped learning; the second was a more traditional presentation by a group of four teachers who had prepared their ideas ahead of time. The third session was one that I had come up with about 8:15 that morning. I didn't think I would host a session; I knew I hadn't prepared anything. But as I was talking with people in the morning, I realized that I had a question that I wanted to discuss with colleagues. So I posted the session, emphasized that it would be a discussion, not a presentation, and started off with "I hope you're not here for answers!" It turned out to be great having about a dozen dedicated teachers and administrators sitting around talking about effective ways to present professional development.
The last session I attended was about a tool that works with Google Apps to allow you to easily distribute files to students. I appreciated that the sessions I attended were a nice mix of high-level, thoughtful discussions and immediate-gratification tools-you-can-use-tomorrow. The other great part about this conference for me was that it was conducted by teachers, for teachers. There wasn't a vendor in sight, nobody selling a book, just teachers who wanted to talk about their profession and think about how we can all make education better.
Holly and I had already kicked around the idea of bringing an EdCamp to San Diego, specifically to North County. At lunch, we sat with four or five other San Diego-area teachers who are also interested, and we decided to start planning. If you're interested in attending, or interested in helping out, let me know!
