#educamprotovegas

An amazing turnout and packed room at #Educamprotovegus proved that there are many passionate educators striving to develop their own learning and guide their own PD. It was wonderful to see so many newbies to Educampnz and I believe they all felt welcome and not overwhelmed by the geeks. I especially liked how much focus was on got pedagogy that was not particularly elearning as their is often the misconception that these teacher gatherings are for ITC geeks only.


The Smackdown ruled the day with a huge range of incredible resources being shared. It was a truly inspiring experience and I'm still processing all the amazing things I learnt.


The Twitter feed tells the story of our day and conversations happening. 

Thank you Annemarie @mrs_hyde for bringing us all together.

EduCampNZ Christchurch 2014 #educampchch

I love going to EduCamps as for me they showcase what I believe a model life-long learner teacher is. These amazing teachers take a Saturday morning of their own time to share and learn from each other, to connect and collaborate. So not only was this #educampchch a wonderful learning experience but also a great chance to meet those teachers whose passion for teaching learning is an inspiration.

Below is a copy of the Smackdown slides and they were all fanatasic, but some of my favourites where:
* Kahoot (Slide 6): which allows you to run a quiz, you do however need either a connected device per student or per group.
* The Five Sentence Challenge (Slide 10): which is an online writing challenge for emergent writers.

* Coding for Teachers (Slide 18): a community of teacher learning to code together.

Smackdown Slides

I presented some of my favourite free coding sites and apps for different primary school levels.

There was also a lively Twitter backchat and sharing happening which you can view below.
Twitter Feed
  #educampchch Tweets

Virtually at EducampNZ 2010

One of my less useful super powers is getting lost anywhere, which I did remarkably well today. I was planning to attend the unconference EducampNZ 2010. I went to last years one and it was a great place to meet PLN's and share our learning. However, I first managed to get onto the wrong highway then eventually to the right area, but after an hour and a half I couln't take any more traffic and decided to go home.

Dispite my frustration I could not help but do as many others were doing today and attend virtually. These were the options:
- Follow and join individual conversations on Twitter hashtag #educampnz
- Read their wiki page
- Share ideas on the wallwisher
- Or say how you felt about it using AnswerGarden

Nothing can substitute for being physically at a conference but here are my thoughts on what it was like as a virtual participant. I got some great ideas from the sharing on the wallwisher, particularly AnswerGarden which I thought has lots of potential in the classroom as a brainstorming tool. The wiki page was an essential gateway and reference point although was not an active virtual environment.

The main virtual involvement was via the Twitter hashtag #educampnz which you can still search and follow the conversations of the day. However the online conversations were few, mere tantalizing glimpses into the subjects being explored. It left me wondering how we could plan for and ensure a more active virtual presence at conferences like this, so people who cannot physically attend can take a bigger part in the sharing and learning. Any ideas?




What did you think of Educampnz 2010... at AnswerGarden.ch.