It Started As A Single Conversation...

Redcamp '13 (a borderline-cheesy combination of our location here in Red Deer and the Edcamp event that we hosted on May 11th, 2013) by all accounts was a great success. The site for Central Alberta's very first full-blown Edcamp was Glendale Sciences and Technology School, and it took place on a beautiful Saturday in which almost 120 teachers, administrators, educational assistants, university/college students, as well as a speech-language pathologist and a City of Red Deer Councillor, participated in almost 30 unique sessions of professional learning.

Redcamp '13 started as a single conversation between Diane Roberts (@robertsdrb), Sean Grainger (@graingered) and me, almost seven months ago. In very short order our "committee" had grown to include nine educators altogether, including representation from both Red Deer Public and Catholic Schools. After just a few meetings Sean Grainger had set up a web page, a blog, and a registration process, and we were off to the proverbial races! Thanks to the concerted effort of our committee our numbers began to grow, and by the time May 11th, 2013 had rolled around we had 127 registrants for our Edcamp event.

As participants started filing into Glendale School on Saturday morning the reality of the event probably hit me for the first time... educators (and other non-educators but still life-long learners) had set aside families, chores, recreation, and a great number of other events & responsibilities, to attend a day of professional learning, put on by other colleagues and professionals from throughout Alberta. As the schedule board started filling up (4 time blocks with 7 sessions in each block) and participants began to take their seats for our opening comments, I knew that all of the work and worry leading up to May 11th had been worth it.

I had the privilege of welcoming the participants to REdcamp '13, as well as the great honour of introducing our fantastic organizing committee:

• Kelly Aleman
• Joe Bower
• Larry Hartel
• Sean Grainger
• Ted Hutchings
• Dave Martin
• Chris McCullough
• Diane Roberts

Joe Bower and Sean Grainger each spoke to the assembled group, and then participants headed out to classrooms to attend their first session. My plan had been to roam around to as many sessions as possible, but this turned out to be very difficult to do as I found myself drawn in to the professional conversations taking place in the rooms I was visiting, and I ended up spending most of the time in the first session engaged in a very spirited dialogue about what will be happening in Alberta now that the Provincial Achievement Tests had been scrapped, and replaced with a new literacy & numeracy based student learning assessments.

In the second block I facilitated a session entitled, "Creating a Culture of Collaboration"

In this session there were participants from school jurisdictions in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Sturgeon, Chinook's Edge, Wolf Creek, as well as a city councillor from the City of Red Deer, and an instructor from Red Deer College. The Edcamp saying, "the expert is the room" was certainly evident in my session about collaboration, as the conversation was lively and continued strongly until the session ended 60 minutes later. If I hadn't already thought the day was a complete success, I definitely felt that way after the session on "Creating a Culture of Collaboration".

Considering the sun was shining, and the temperature was above 20C, I wondered how many of the participants would come back after the lunch break, but I shouldn't have worried at all. When the third session started at 12:45pm seven rooms were once again engaged in dialogue and rich with professional learning. I attended a session put on by Paul Harris (@harris4rd), a City Councillor for Red Deer. "Purpose-Centre Questions" was a session in which Paul modelled the use of purpose-centred questions whilst "teaching" us what they were and how to use them. A fantastic session.

In the fourth block I attended a session on "Teaching Math Creatively" by Kim Miner, from the Calgary Board of Education. Kim is currently on sabbatical taking her Master of Education degree, and she shared some of the work she has been undertaking in this regard as it relates to Math. A great deal of sharing took place during this session, and I was quite disappointed when Sean's voice came over the announcement system letting us know that the end of the day was almost upon us, and it was time to gather in the gym for one last wrap up comment.

In the gym there were a lot of thank you's - both Sean and our committee thanking the participants, and the participants thanking us for putting the Edcamp event on (our pleasure!). Sean shared the blog and encouraged all participants to submit content to it (which I will be doing with this reflection myself), and then the 100+ participants left the school to enjoy the rest of the beautiful day, and the rest of the weekend.

After a bit of clean up I too left the school and drove back home to Lacombe to spend the remainder of the evening with my family. As the 15-minute drive up the QEII went by all I thought about was what a wonderful day of professional learning I had just experienced. Of all the Micheal Fullans, Ken Robinsons, and Rick Dufours I've seen, I would rate REdcamp '13 among the best professional learning experiences I have attended. Yes, without a doubt, "the expert is the room"! I can't wait until my next Edcamp experience, and I can say with no hesitation or doubt, REdcamp '14 will be a fixture on my professional learning calendar one year from now!

Let's Talk Twitter!

I'm here to share about Twitter & RedCamp13!

This past weekend I was privileged to have attended the very first #RedCamp13 in Red Deer, Alberta! EdCamp is a free conference for primary and secondary school educators who go knowing they will have an opportunity to contribute to and discuss various topics. I recently attended #EdCampYYC in Calgary, Alberta and the word spread that there would be another one in Red Deer.

As a pre-service teacher, I loved that EdCamp gave me the opportunity to facilitate a discussion. I had a voice and was able to learn from those who attended our discussion. Naturally, I went to this conference with my sidekick (or fellow student teacher) @jbechthold. We decided to facilitate a session together which was the perfect chance to share the neat opportunities we have had because of our connections on Twitter. Our session was titled, "Twitter: Being a 'Twerp' has its advantages" in which I talked about my experience as a Mystery Reader (see in a previous blog post http://missfechosblog.weebly.com/reflections.html) and @jbechthold discussed how a combination of blogging and tweeting landed him as a guest blogger for a company in the USA called "alwaysprepped". With this, we were able to open up a discussion in which others talked about how Twitter has become a positive tool in their lives as educators.

I suppose, in a way, we chose this topic selfishly so that we could learn from other more experienced educators about how they use tools like Twitter and other forms of social media in their classrooms. But that's exactly what EdCamp is! EdCamp is a way for educators to share and learn from each other.

A Calgary educator mentioned how his class had been tweeting back and forth with a farmer who sent them pictures of his crops etc. Twitter also made it possible for his class to follow and be updated by the NASA astronauts currently in Space! So unbelievable; a live feed for his students.

Anyways, to keep this quick: Twitter is AWESOME. So many connections to be made, so much collaboration and "PD when I want it" (Educator who attended our session at RedCamp13),
    
I found EdCamp to be like Twitter in person! Everyone has a voice. I love that Twitter brought EdCamp to life and that I was able to collaborate in person with those I collaborate with on Twitter. It's amazing to see collaboration happening in both places - we were able to share what we were learning with those unable to be there all because of Twitter!

Thanks for reading and please share any comments you might have below :)

- Kirby Fecho

The Collaborators...

  by  Brenderous

Around a hundred really smart people talking up #goodedu at #redcamp13! What an awesome day of #collaborative learning:)
— redcamp2013 (@redcamp13) May 11, 2013

They engaged, they listened and they collaborated. Red Deer's and central Alberta's first edcamp unconference is on the books... what a fantastic day it was.

I really appreciate the reflective post, "If You Build It, They Will Camp," by @robertsdrb and especially this comment...

Every session I went to gave me something which either changed, deepened, challenged or furthered my thinking. And there were many other sessions that I didn't get a chance to go to but wish I would have had the time for as well.

There's not much I could add to Diane's excellent recap and reflection of #redcamp13, except to say that I completely agree with this statement. As one of the other organizers of the event, and a host representing Glendale Sciences and Technology School where #redcamp13 was held, I felt responsible for keeping the flow going, and as a result didn't get to sit in on as many sessions as I would have hoped. That's OK though, because stepping back a bit gave me a unique perspective. From the sidelines I was able to make a few observations, some new friends and I had time to think about what we could add to #redcamp14...

• People. One of my hallway conversations with a school board trustee in attendance (thanks so much for that Cathy:) highlighted the wonderfully diverse nature of our unconference participants. Registered participants included...

School Administrators= 23
Senior Administrators= 2
Local Red Deer Teachers= 41
Out of Town Teachers= 33
External Agencies Supporting Schools= 6
Educational Assistants= 1
University Students/Recent Grads= 12
School Board Officials= 4
University Professors= 2
Seventh Grade Glendale Students= 3
Politicians= 1
Parents= 2

Cathy and I agreed that there are many stakeholders in providing high quality education, and many were represented at #redcamp13, but we could get more. Capturing the diversity in their perspectives is an important goal of the edcamp process.

• Kids. We had three (committed seventh grade students offered a session off the cuff explaining their edible landscaping project, and how they convinced the City of Red Deer to join them in creating a beautiful community resource on our shared property; an edible garden plan for everyone to enjoy and benefit from...) but more would be better. I had another conversation with a group of redcamp champs discussing the tremendous value of capturing student voice in an edcamp context. We were thinking out loud how great it would be to provide opportunities for students to share their thoughts about what can and perhaps should be done to continue supporting improved teaching and learning. We thought a TED style format would fit very nicely where kids briefly present their position, idea, dream, challenge etc. and then host a dialog around their topic of focus. This came to me during the session I presented addressing authentic and creative learning tasks, and we watched this... 

• Collaborative Projects. The image at the top of this post made me think about this very cool #redcamp13 session...

  @redcamp13 Thanks for the great day. Instead of blogging, we sang about it. Here is "Big Brains" youtube.com/watch?v=c2kZ2j… #redcamp13
  — Tim Bowman (@BowmanTwits) May 12, 2013

  I'm wondering why a collaborative, one day art, writing, drama or blog project couldn't materialize as a feature outcome of #redcamp14.

•  Topics. We had a rich and practical list of session topics; all proposed and presented by redcamp13 delegates. Presenters included politicians, teachers, administrators, senior administrators, pre-service teachers, recent education graduates, university professors, external agency representatives and even middle school students... it was an awesome range of choices, and one day just didn't seem like enough to fully address them, but maybe that's what's supposed to happen at edcamps. Perhaps some of these conversations will continue to evolve at the next edcamp offered in another town or city. At any rate, the more choice there is in session topics, the higher the chance we can create engagement and value in our conversations.

So my final words to close out the day included a simple invitation. I asked redcampers to consider that the interactions and conversations having occurred during the event could (perhaps should) be considered as beginnings; not endings. I suggested that the dialog should continue and the connections should strengthen through an effort to maintain a level of social and professional engagement with each other.

One thing I know for sure is that the people who made up #redcamp13 were already attuned to the social side of collaborative efforts.

 

They were motivated to make themselves visible and to participate. They shared what they knew, tools they had and thoughts they pondered. They showed up at #redcamp13 on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning in May when they could have been doing other things; I think because they saw the value in finding each other. They readily connected and related personally and professionally with each other. They contributed.

Perhaps all of this is why the forming, storming, norming and reforming they did above the social collaboration wave went so smoothly.

 

I am very much looking forward to #redcamp14!

Sean Grainger

@graingered

REDCAMP 2013

I had the opportunity to attend REDCAMP in Red Deer, on Saturday. The opportunity came to my attention because of Twitter. I have never attended an edcamp before. Sean Grainger (@graingered) posted a link to information and registration for the event. I had an idea as to what the event would be about, and registered right away.

There were a few really neat things that came out of #redcamp13:

• Reaffirmation of the fact that you can never trust navigation on your iPhone!
• I got to meet people I had connected with on Twitter. @hewsonk27 @joe_bower @graingered @Weilinga1
• Whenever you get educators together and let them talk about ways to move forward, best practice, tools to improve instruction, etc. you are guaranteed to have rich and powerful discussions.
• I was able to make new connections. Sitting in sessions and listening to people talk about their learning, really gives you a good idea about where they are coming from. I added a number of new people to my PLN. Some people added me as well.
• One of the most enjoyable sessions of the day was the JAM session. @mrtetz, @socgall, @BowmanTwits, myself and one other music teacher participated in writing a Redcamp song...                                                                                                                  

The quality isn't the best, but this type of collaboration is just as powerful as the discussions around education. We also discussed that Jam Sessions are the original Edcamp!

• Not everyone participating in the sessions agreed on everything. Being open to the ideas of others and discussing opinions, is very powerful. It's the discussion that is the important part. We are always learning and it's so great to be learning from each other.

After the opening session, which itself provided some great ideas, I attended a session on what we are going to do now that PATs are over. The discussion was great, but there was a focus at first on speculation around what was going to be done to us as educators now. The discussion did turn more towards the opportunities that were presented if we choose to exercise our voice and put forward what our feelings as to where education can go from this point.

My second session was presented by @EbertsR and discussed establishing a culture of collaboration in your school. The collaborative culture we establish in our PLNs can add to the scholarship that exists in our schools.

After lunch I attended a discussion on Twitter with @jbechthold and @KirbyFecho. This was a smaller session, but really demonstrated the power of using Twitter in our schools and for our personal learning. One neat thing about this session was that there were three pre-service teachers, two of which facilitated the session. There are many reflective, forward thinking young teachers out there. It is exciting to see the passion and commitment that our up and coming members of the profession have.

The last session I attended, as I mentioned in my list above, was the JAM session. That was very fun, and a great way to end a great day.

I hope to be able to attend many more edcamps in the future!! YOU SHOULD TOO!!

D Propp
(This is also posted on my personal blog at www.principalpropp.com)

If you build it, they will camp!

Redcamp13...born out of a conversation about edcamps...  “Have you heard about the unconference, participant-driven idea for professional development called edcamp?” “Yeah, intriguing idea.”  “We should plan one!”  “Ok!”  

There really wasn’t any hesitation after that.  If you build it, they will camp.  That was our hope in planning Central Alberta’s first edcamp which was dubbed Redcamp (a play on words for our city of Red Deer from the creative mind of @EbertsR).  So we did build it, and on May 11, 2013 Redcamp13 happened!  People interested in conversations and learning about education came to Glendale Sciences & Technology School in Red Deer, Alberta.  Teachers, educational assistants, principals and vice-principals along with central office administrators were there.  Pre-service teachers and their professors from university were there. But that was not all, no that was not all.  There were speech/language pathologists, city counsellors and school board trustees too!  Wow!  The depth and breadth of knowledge and experience really did justice to the saying, “the expert is the room”.  

The buzz in the gym just prior to the opening remarks by the Redcamp team was palpable.  People were excited to be there even on a beautiful Saturday morning in May when they could easily have been doing other things.  I know I wasn’t the only one wondering how this would turn out but we were all eager to try it.  Sessions were added to the board, coffee was poured, conversations started over Twitter handles on nametags..."Hey! So nice to meet someone from my Twitter PLN face to face!"

Things got started with a short introduction by @EbertsR, @joe_bower and @graingered and then we were off to hour-long sessions which for some discussions could have been longer but there is only so much time in the day and so many topics to learn and talk about!

As one of the organizers of Redcamp, my intent was to pop into many sessions to get a flavour for what was going on and maybe snap a few photos for Twitter.  I started out this way but many of the sessions I intended to only pop in on, drew me in and I stayed.  Conversations around inclusion lead by @BeyondTheCrayon, engaging all students led by @JasTravers and whether math should be graded led by @d_martin05 were fascinating and inspiring.  Conversation and sharing about turning your classroom into a creativity lab and starting a creativity revolution led by @twnpenner got my brain jazzed UP!  I learned about purposeful questions and collaboration by actively participating in the process with businessman/city counsellor @harris4rd.  Every session I went to gave me something which either changed, deepened, challenged or furthered my thinking. And there were many other sessions that I didn't get a chance to go to but wish I would have had the time for as well.

There were quite a few steps involved in planning our first Redcamp (which I will leave for another post in case anyone is thinking of planning one of their own) and with our busy professional and personal lives, at times I wondered if it was all going to be worth it.  All I can now say is YES, YES, YES!  It was worth it!  

Will there be a Redcamp14?  Absolutely!  Will there be other edcamps because those who came to ours are inspired to host one of their own?  I don’t doubt it at all.  The feedback we have had from Redcamp has been fantastic and very positive.  I’m looking forward not only to planning Redcamp14 but also to attending edcamps elsewhere.  If they build it, I will camp!

Diane Roberts
@robertsdrb

One Day Away...

So the first ever edcamp in central Alberta is only a day away. Some pre-conference reflections are in order...

• It's totally amazing to me to consider that 126 people, many from out of town, and some from way out of town, have registered for a one day education conference on a Saturday that has no marquis name, brand or theme... a truly dedicated bunch of folks who just want to talk about how to make education better.
• It is really intriguing to notice such a broad spectrum of people with different backgrounds coming together at #redcamp13... it truly does take a village, as they say.
• It is so great to see a dozen pre-service teachers take the edcamp plunge. My guess? This is a highly engaged and dedicated group of teachers-to-be joining us.
• It has been interesting to watch the #redcamp13 event evolve over time in organic and transformative ways. I have come to realize once again, the power of social connection, and as part of the #redcamp planning process, I've learned about social collaboration too.
• Edcamps are a trend worth watching. Along the journey toward our event we received support from two leading web-based tech tools. Biteslide came on board with a door prize sponsorship of 10 free premium memberships and participant discounts for everyone, and Yapp provided free app creation services for #redcamp13. They called us... very cool:)
• It takes only a few engaged and collaborative people to put an edcamp together. Thanks to the locals for being those people!

So I know there will be more to say during and after #redcamp13... my hope is the tweets will be flying in multiple directions, and that the backchannel is relevant and useful to those who can't attend. I also hope participants will make use of our #redcamp13 app, and in particular to upload a memorable bunch of photos to record the day. Most of all though I hope that people attend #redcamp13 with an open mind and a sincere willingness to be vulnerable within their learning.

It's not too late to join us... pre-register at the red button registration link above, or just show up on Saturday morning... we'd be be so happy to have you join us!

Is Everyone Creative?

The answer is simple.
Yes.

We ignore our creative self as we get older, do more, and busy our brains with other things.  I believe that everyone is born with creative capacity.  I believe that the world we learn in does a great job of drilling this creativity out of us.  How sad is that?  There are loads of writing on the subject.  What I do know as an educator is that it is important to emphasize creativity in student learning.  It is a way for them to become innovators of their own learning.  It is a way for them to learn that failing IS part of life and sometimes leads to the next great idea.

I am blessed to teach in creative arts.  It is the way I do business in my classroom.  My hope would be that educators in all classrooms (not just the Arts) develop creativity as a way of learning subject matter.

Join Trina Penner's discussion about Creativity and Learning at #redcamp13.

Trina Penner
Fine Arts Department (Drama, Technical Theatre, and Dance)
Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School

Zen and the Art of the Lingering Question...

This is a guest post from Jasmine Travers-Charbonneau, Speech and Language Pathologist and #redcamp13 champ. This is her first blog... thanks so much Jasmine for contributing!

How does one "present" at an unconference?

You see, I am passionate about a number of topics: inclusion, assistive technology, literacy and communication. Having an opportunity to talk about them, learn about them, and discover new resources with others keeps me engaged in the work I do. So, when the opportunity to share and connect with educators at #redcamp13 came up, I signed up immediately, but now, I have been wondering what "sessions" and "presenting" look like at an edcamp.

The most meaningful professional learning usually revolves around answering a lingering question. With the edcamp model of identifying topics being so unique and participant driven, why would we approach "presenting" in a conventional way? Let's ask questions. Let's bring our most exciting materials. Let's be free to give our opinions, share our experiences, and wonder aloud. Presenting, then, would not be lecturing, but rather facilitating a conversation. That's not so tough!

Looking forward to seeing and learning from you next weekend.

Jasmine Travers-Charbonneau R.SLP, MSc.SLP, SLP (C)
Speech Language Pathologist
REACH, Red Deer
 jltravers@cbe.ab.ca

We Have An App!

With many thanks to Katelyn at Yapp, #redcamp13 now has a conference app! We encourage everyone participating at redcamp to make use of this app before, during and after the conference. You can register for redcamp, check out our schedule, browse proposed sessions, follow our Twitter feed or even upload pictures... what a great service from a great app provider!

In order to download the app, follow the simple directions found here...

http://my.yapp.us/REDCAMP13

Tap or input that link from your iOS or Android device and you will either:

• Be prompted to download YappBox from your app store if you haven't already
• Have your app installed automatically inside of YappBox if YappBox is on your phone already

...or scan this QR and get the app that way.

 

 

We look forward to staying connected to all the #redcampchamps via our new Yapp app! See you on May 11.