I was there!

I was at RedCamp, Red Deer’s first ever EdCamp on Saturday. It was fantastic to be among so many connected educators from Central Alberta. There were 100+ people there, even though it was a beautiful Saturday, many had traveled from outside Red Deer.

This was a smaller event than EdCampYYC last month, but the smaller scale made it easier to make connections. I met a new people and a few Tweeps, people that I had connected with on Twitter but never met.

What is EdCamp?

EdCamps un-conferences, crowd-sourced professional development. Anyone can present, or suggest a session. EdCamps are free. This is a great explanation of what EdCamps are and their history from the EdCamp Foundation and this Edutopia post by Kirsten Swanson explains what EdCamps are and why they are valuable. If you’d prefer to hear about it in song, here is the EdCamp lip dub.

RedCamp

Red Deer’s version of EdCamp was called RedCamp. The schedule for RedCamp was collaboratively built. About a week before it started we were invited to compete a survey if we wanted to facilitate a session. Session information was compiled into a dynamically updated session list. Some of the details were worked out on Twitter:

Arranging a session @RedCamp13

At RedCamp these sessions were displayed on a whiteboard. The number of sessions increased throughout the day.

RedCamp13 Schedule

Glendale School is Cool

RedCamp took place at Glendale Science and Technology School, a K-8 school in the north end of Red Deer. I was given a tour of the labs by the principal, Larry Hartel (@lartel), they have a science lab, an art studio, a shop, and food/fashion lab. I can’t wait to see what kinds of Career and Technology Foundations projects they do once CTF is implemented.

It is a busy place. They are building a huge skateboard park and a community center beside the school. Glendale is starting an edible gardening project, which was expertly explained by three grade seven students during the last RedCamp session. They planted their first tree last week (an apple donated by the City of Red Deer to celebrate its centennial) and they have revived a lot of support for their project, including a couple of grants.

Ron Eberts‘ Reflections from RedCamp, describes how the event was organized in less than a year, as well as his thoughts about the day.

Sessions I Went To

I attended some great sessions. In the first one Ted Hutchins (@bunman3), the principal of Grandview Elementary school, showed us how he uses social media (FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest) to communicate about the school. This has allowed them to connect with parents who they are not normally able to connect with. Discussions and suggestions for best practices took place in the room and in the back channel on Twitter.

Tweet at start of @bunman3′s session

Tweet sharing @bunman3′s presentation

I also attended a session by Verena Roberts (@verenanz) about Open Education in K-12, and one facilitated by Red Deer businessman and councillor Paul Harris (@harris4rd) about Reflexive Practice in Organizations.

Sessions I Wish I Attended

One of the differences I have noticed between EdCamps and other teacher professional development I am required to attend, is that at EdCamp there are so many interesting sessions offered at the same time, there is always a session I have to miss that I want to attend. The Twitter back channel was busy, including these Tweets about one of the sessions I missed.

Tweets from @JoeBower’s session on assessment

Check out my Storify of RedCamp Tweets to read more conversations.

Curricular Transformation

I love connecting with other educators who are passionate about making a difference in the lives of their students, and who are willing to explore new ideas and ways of thinking and share what they know. I am reading Clay Shirkey‘s “Here Comes Everybody” and his description of altruism in the Perl community makes me think of EdCamp: “This is not pure altruism; the person who teaches learns twice, the person who answers questions gets an improved reputation in the community, and the overall pattern of distributed and delayed payback – if I take care of you know, someone will take care of me later – is a very practical way of creating … social capital.”

I am looking forward to my next EdCamp, and to RedCamp14, which Diane Roberts (@robertsdrb) assures us will be coming next year in her RedCamp Post.

Finally, check out “Big Brains” which was written and recorded at RedCamp.