EdCamp:TSS Style!

In my last post I hinted at the EdCamp that I was going to coordinate at my school. Well now I can tell you all about what we did!  I have to admit, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but it actually went really well!  I'm proud of myself and now I know I can do it!  I"ll break down how it all went down in 3 parts so it's not too lengthy!

I know, me lengthy? Never!

Let's start at the beginning...I went home early one day with a sick kiddo (I was feeling like crud too) and took some heavy duty cough syrup.  I'm sitting on the couch, wrapped up in blankets like a butterfly in a cocoon, laptop in my lap, and a coughing kid on the couch across from me.  I'm sifting through email and I read one from ISTE on leading your own EdCamp.  What a cool idea it would be to have one at our school!  I should send this to Debbie (my division head)!  She will appreciate this, she always encourages me to do new and exciting things.

*Note to future self: don't send emails when you are loopy on cough syrup.

Anyway, she tells me a couple days later that she liked the email and sent it to the Leadership team!  Huh?  Fast forward a couple days and I bump into our headmaster and he says he can't wait to hear my ideas at their next leadership team meeting.  Again, huh?  This is what happens when your head is too stuffed up to think straight and you can't connect the dots.

A couple more days go by and I get an email letting me know when the next leadership team meeting is and the time they'd like me to come over and talk to them about my idea.  Now this snapped me out of my daze!  This was really real!!  Yikes!  What have I done?!?  I don't know how to put together an EdCamp!  Am I crazy?  Well, there's no going back.  I can do this, I was raised to be a strong, independent, smart woman.  I got this!  OK, breathe. I chewed off all my nails. That's ok, because I've got this!

**Can you tell I had some moments of "what in the world have I done"?!?  I waffled between being super excited and super stressed.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but now I realize that the day I pitched the idea to the leadership team was the most stressful part of all.  Were they going to understand the concept of this?  Would they think it fit their idea of what a PD day should look like?  This really isn't a traditional PD, would they think it doesn't fit our needs? Am I sounding like I'm a know-it-all and I don't think other folks are doing enough with the tech piece?  All these and a hundred more went through my mind as I walked over to that meeting.  Again, the nerves kick in except I don't have any more nails to chew.

Fast forward 30 minutes and I'm walking back to my class with a big smile on my face.  They thought it sounded like a good idea and that it was great to be on the forefront of new ideas.  It's a great opportunity to share new and fresh ideas among the divisions.  I was on my way to organizing the first ever EdCamp at our school!  Why had I stressed so much about this?  Debbie wouldn't have let me pitch this idea if she thought they would have dismissed it.  Wow!  They liked the idea of an EdCamp!  This was going to be great!

One hurdle over, now for the next one.  Getting this thing put together and ready to go.  I'll have all the fun details on how I got this baby off the ground in my next post!

Keep it techy!
Steph  :)

Slacker is back!!

Oh, yes!  I'm back!  I've been slacking on the blog thing, but it's time I get back into doing this.

A teacher's life is always busy, but it's no excuse to put things off.  I need to force myself to get in the groove of writing at least one entry every other week or maybe once a week so as to create a new habit.

I do so many fun, techy lessons with my kiddos that it's a shame I don't share more.  Well, it's about to stop!  My dear friend, Sheila, will keep me on track, she's my biggest blogging/tech cheerleader and I want to make her proud.

Well then, let's catch up a bit...

You all know I went to spend a few days with Richard Byrne at his awesome Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp for Teachers (PET Camp).  I just got the ok from my division head to head back to Maine to see him again, but this time for a Chromebook camp!  Hands-down, he's got to be my favorite tech guru.  I'm super stoked to go again.  I can't wait to learn even more from him.  You think you know all that you can do with Google tools and he wows you with a bunch more awesome things you had no idea existed.  I'm going to be counting down the days!

Head back farther to November and I was fortunate to be chosen as a presenter at the Thinking and Learning with iPads conference in Raleigh, NC.  I did a session titled "Comics in the Classroom".  The idea was to share with others the many different web-tools and iPad apps that allow you to create comic strips.

My spin was that comics can be fun and useful as an alternative assessment tool.  I use them in my classroom for language arts on a regular basis to see if the kiddos understand how to use different parts of speech in a real situation.  Sure they can find the action verb on an action verb worksheet, but do they really know how to use one in a sentence or a short story?  Yup, you can assess that with a comic strip!  I'll share more ideas and some samples in an upcoming post.  Just a little tease to keep you reading!  Here's a little one from MakeBeliefsComix.com to honor all my creative teacher friends!

Below is the link to this online and you can create one of your own! From the link you will see that my character is animated, it's a still here since I just took a screen shot. It's one of their new features!
Demo Comic Strip

In about a week and a half I will be coordinating our campus wide professional development afternoon.  It's a half day for the kiddos and then the other half is up to me.  No pressure, right?

Well it's not as bad as it sounds.  I went to an EdCamp in Balitimore, MD earlier this school year and was intrigued with the whole concept of an un-conference.  It was truly fascinating to see that the entire conference was participant driven and lead.  While I didn't take away a lot of info, the session topics were more focused toward public, big school, inner-city issues, since that was the majority of participants (I'm small, private school, more of a country setting teacher, therefore not too many things in common).  Regardless, the whole idea of an un-conference held potential in my mind.

Flash forward to the middle of March, I'm home with my little guy and we're both sick.  I'm reading my emails and see one from ISTE about hosting an EdCamp.  I thought, "Hey!  This would be a great thing for our school!"  So drugged up on cough syrup and having NyQuil induced boldness,  I sent an email to my division head.  She sent it on to the rest of the leadership team, and now I'm the proud coordinator of our next PD day!  Wow, how did that happen?  I'll let you all know how it goes after I get through it on the 20th of this month.  Keep me in your thoughts that afternoon and pray I don't have a nervous breakdown (or chew off what's left of my fingernail nubs).

I'll let you know how I organized the whole thing and what I might do differently next time. See, I'm already thinking about the next one and I haven't even lived through this one yet! Optimistic is the way to be!!

I think I've covered the big items in my techy teacher life.  I've got to get to work writing my next few posts now that I'm rejuvenated!

Stay techy my friends!  Steph