Workings of an EdCamp

On Saturday, April 16th, Katie Cseh and I attended EdCampNEO held in Mentor High School's state-of-the-art Paradigm center.  It was the first official "EdCamp" I had attended and was unsure of what to expect of this new trend sweeping the nation, however, I had heard this format of professional development was exceptionally worthwhile.  So here is a summary of how it worked.

The morning began at 8am with an appetizing breakfast spread complete with bacon and eggs!  During the first hour of camp, while dining on our scrumptious breakfast with like-minded colleagues, attendees were asked to complete a Google form to submit a topic they would like to discuss with the option to act as moderator for the discussion.  Being a moderator simply means that you are willing to try to move the conversation along - not present or dominate the discussion.  This made the atmosphere considerably more laid-back and non-threatening.  Also, it made all participants accountable for being active contributors to the conversations they joined.  Meanwhile, the coordinators of the EdCamp were actively posting topics and assigning rooms to host the proposed discussions.

After sessions and moderators had been established, participants were able to view the schedule and decide which sessions they were going to attend.  There were only 3 back-to-back sessions, each lasting about 45 minutes.  If we did not find the conversation to be stimulating, we were free to leave one and enter another.  Between each session was a 15-minute break, which allowed teachers to get coffee, and discuss ideas that had been shared in their previous session. Each session began with a brief introduction of the participants and the moderator asked the first question to get the ball rolling.  After that, the discussion was in full swing.  Some of the many diverse topics included using rubric tools, preparing our students to be career-ready, and providing our students a global platform.

The 3 sessions were followed by lunch from a food truck with gourmet cheeseburgers (how awesome is that?) with a student DJ playing some music requested via Twitter by the attendees.  We also had a talented student do a dance routine (dinner and a show!).  Towards the end of lunch - and this was a great idea - 20 participants were asked to share one strategy or tool they found to be most helpful in one minute or less with the whole group. So, in about 10 minutes everyone was able to walk away with additional items from all of the sessions.  The EdCamp concluded with a multitude of drawings for some really cool items, everything from signed books to tech tools to office supplies.

If this sounds like an experience you would be interested in, you're in luck!  The next EdCampCLE is going to be held at Kinsner Elementary School in Strongsville on May 21st!  I'm in, are you?

You can find more information about EdCampCLE at https://edcampcle.wordpress.com/ 





     

The Power of Backchanneling

Backchanneling is the process of having a side conversation during a presentation.  Basically, it is the modern way of passing notes.  This can actually be a powerful learning tool for students during certain class activities, just as it is for teachers during a professional development training (c'mon, teachers backchannel ALL the time).  So, let me give you an example of the learning potential of backchanneling.

Back in February, Mrs. Jessen's Honors Biology class participated in a distance learning program through WVIZ/PBS Civic Common ideastream and in cooperation with the Great lakes Science Center about Lake Erie algal blooms and their wide-reaching impacts on water quality.  For the first 20 minutes of the program students were engrossed in listening to the discussion between the expert panelists partaking in the forum, which included politicians, scientists, business leaders, city leaders, and community activists.  Then, as the conversation progressed, engagement in the program began to wane.

Suddenly it hit me - why don't I create a shared Google Doc, so that students and teachers can post their questions and comments about what they are hearing from the program?  (Duh, yes I'm a tech coach.)  So, I quickly created a doc, shared it with Mrs. Jessen and her class, and KABOOM - meaningful dialogue between students and other students, and between students and teachers started happening.

Here are some of the comments and questions from the shared gDoc:

• If the protists causing these algal blooms are toxic based on the number of genes expressed, can we find a way to alter those genes to prevent toxicity?
• They mentioned that the Toledo incident happened mainly because they only had 1 water intake, I think.. Is Vermilion the same or do we have more?
• What kind of bacteria or viruses can limit algal blooms? I feel like that may make the problem worse depending on what is used

(full conversation available here)

See what I mean?  So, what are some tools that we as teachers can use to promote appropriate student backchanneling?  Obviously, Google Docs as the example above illustrates is an effective tool.  Not only can you monitor the conversation and chime in, but you can see the revision history of who said what.  Twitter is another option, although one that you as a teacher have less control over.  However, it may set up an ideal situation to integrate a conversation with students about responsible digital citizenship.  Along the same lines as Twitter, but more visual is Instagram.  TodaysMeet, Socrative, and GoSoapBox are other free sites that allow your students to answer questions and post discussion items.  Please contact me if you would like to further explore backchanneling in your classroom!

Kindergartners Researching? Yes We Can!

About 2 months ago, with the support of Regina Lowe, I devised a digital multimedia project for her Kindergarten class - creating a field guide of common Ohio animals and their adaptations.  We began the project by showing the students all types of field guides and had a class discussion about what the books are used for and the information they provide.  Then we asked the students if they wanted to create their very own field guide and the answer was a resounding "Yes"! (I love the enthusiasm of a kindergartner).  We then used maps, first finding Earth, the continents, North America, the United States, Ohio, and then finally Vermilion.  The students all had identified Ohio and had a dot on their maps in their research journals indicating the approximate (and I do stress approximate) location of our city.
(Link to the Field Guide Project Plan - complete with standards!)
(Link to the Research Journal here)

As a class, we came up with a list of animals that live in Ohio.  Most of the animals students listed were mammals, so I thought I would incorporate a bit of classification into the project by showing them some common birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and other mammals.  Each group created a poster of an animal group identifying some of the major distinguishing features of that group.  For example, the group having mammals drew lots of hair on their illustrations.  Once the posters were created, we played a game, where we randomly choose an Ohio animal and then every student stood by the poster in the room showing the group that animal belonged.  (We are still working on reptiles versus amphibians.)

After the students were acquainted with a variety of Ohio animals, it was time to select everyone's own animal to research.  Students were chosen by random to select their animal, which they then illustrated on the first page of their research notebooks.  Next, I conferenced with each student about the questions they had about their animal.  We received questions like "How do turkeys make a gobbling sound?", "How does a largemouth bass live in the winter?" and "How far can a bullfrog jump?".

Now, the hard part.  How was I going to research with each student to find the answers to their questions about their animal with only a few short weeks to finish the field guide?  (I had given myself an April 21st deadline since we arranged the Erie Metroparks to give all the Kindergarten classes a live animal demonstration that day.)  I considered using a safe search engine such as KidzSearch or  Safe Search For Kids with a text-to-speech tool, but was concerned about the quality of information each student would be able to comprehend.  In the end, we were fortunate to have 3 teachers (thank you Mr. Kacur and Mrs. Lowe) and 2 high school students (so very grateful to Jocelyn and Haylie) researching one-on-one with each student.  Every student was able to have individual time discussing the information we were discovering about their animal, which ended up being the ideal situation.  This drives home the need for strong collaboration between our teachers both within and between buildings to provide that support needed to take on these more daunting student projects.  

To construct the actual book, we are considering using Google Docs or Slides, downloading the product as a PDF and then uploading to FlipSnack.  Or, we could use iBooks Author and publish to iTunes U or the iBooks Store.  Perhaps we will use both to discover pros and cons and blog about those in an upcoming post.  In the meantime, be on the look out for our published field guide coming soon!