Movement on the Learning Curves

So much has been going on there's hardly been time to document but I am so pumped after attending EdCamp Detroit this past Saturday that I just had to share. Wow. What an amazing event. Once again I am amazed that I have never heard about this movement until now. Rest assured I will be watching and waiting enthusiastically from now on!

 Living in a border city has its perks, and driving for twenty minutes to attend a free American education seminar is one of them. I was pleasantly surprised to connect with other like-minded educators from my city also in attendance. The open forum is the best style of PD for teachers that I have experienced yet. Kudos to the TLs in my Board for already giving me experience with it. Differentiated Instruction in action.

In sessions I attended, I learned about Minecraft, lots of amazing apps, blogging, various technology conversations, and networked with many people from all over. We had many great discussions and generated lots of excellent ideas.  It was exciting to meet people face to face that I only knew through Twitter. Lots of new connections were made and I look forward to seeing familiar faces again next year and hopefully when they attend the second(?) annual EdCamp SouthWestern Ontario on October 12, 2013!

The enthusiasm and creativity of the attendees was contagious and I came back from a full day energized and ready to rush in to work and continue with integrating technology to authenticate great learning more than ever.

We had a great day sharing what we knew in various primary science classes and grade 5 drama.

• Grade 5s used AudioBoo to record their skits based on the folk tale The Fisherman & His Wife showing different outcomes obtained by smarter conflict resolution choices.
• Grade 2&3 used Explain Everything to complete a photo search for nonfiction text features we will be creating for our animal inquiry books. 
• Grade 1&2 used Fotobabble to share about body parts of animals versus humans. We tweeted out what sort of creature our chosen animal was and how we knew that. 
• All our primary students became familiar with DropBox so we could access our creations from any device in the school. 

The best part for me was how quickly and efficiently things seemed to go. Even though we didn't complete everyone's projects in this period, I feel like the students are more comfortable and proficient with the technology and better able to get into the content side of their creations rather than focusing on the "how to" for the apps or devices themselves.

Looking forward to what tomorrow brings!