New Teacher Camp 2011 (ntcamp)

I enjoyed the trip into Philadelphia for New Teacher Camp. One of the things I really like about ntcamp is the smaller size of the group of attendees. I met many new people today and enjoyed discussions with several folks in my online network. Gerald Aungst was a wonderful host. The event was held at WHYY Studios at Independence Mall. For a person who does not relish travel it was really easy to get to by car. I found a great $5 for the day parking garage a short walk from the station. It all got me in a great mental frame of mind arriving at the event.

Sessions I Attended

I chose to post sessions I would lead for later in the day since the schedule was fairly empty after lunch. I first met @Cybraryman1, Jerry Blumengarten,  at ntcamp in 2010, but we never really spoke. He reached out to me the day before, online, to share a resource I wanted for my presentation. I made sure to stop by, introduce myself, and chat a bit. I decided to sit in on his session, Expect the Unexpected. I had no idea what the session would be about, but I remember his energy from last year and knew I'd be happy I attended.


He led us through a series of photos documenting his time as a teacher and told stories about incidents in his teaching life and the stories of running into those students years later. My takeaway from the time with Jerry is that we will never really know the impact we may have had on children through specific lessons we teach until many years later. While I know this is true, it was a pleasure seeing it from his perspective as a retired teacher.


My second session was with Lyn Hilt, Make Your PLN Work For You - Get What You Need From Social Media. I have become familiar with Lyn's work via her work with Connected Principals and online interactions. It was great to listen to her. I tried to keep track of my notes as I listened in this Google Doc. While I've been building a Personal Learning Network for several years now, I am always eager to hear tips that I can pass on to others just starting out.

Lunch

For a travel adverse person, I was really happy that Gerald had offered lunch delivery for the day. I sat and enjoyed the company of several educators - some I only met today. It was very leisurely. I sat and chatted for over an hour, then I went to set up for the two sessions I posted on the board.


I had planned on using a protocol on the National School Reform Faculty web site called The Multiple Perspectives Protocol. If you haven't heard of the web site take a look. It is a set of methods that can be used to help lead discussions, review of text, and other tasks with groups of educators (and older students).


As I looked at the protocol the first step calls for asking the attendees to "define" themselves. I decided on a few categories that could be used to define people in both sessions and set up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the responses.


The room did not have a projector, but it had two dry erase boards. In addition to listing the categories on the board, I added the guiding questions I had thought of in advance as bullet points.

Primary and Elementary Collaborations

The first session I offered was titled Primary and Elementary Collaborations. My schedule was opposite the ever popular Web Smackdown, Lyn's Digital Storytelling, and Socrative - Visual Thinking. 


One wonderful attendee spent an hour with me. I had prepared this Google Doc as an electronic handout and outline. Since there was only one person I didn't use the protocol. It was a pleasure sharing ideas with someone just getting ready to do student teaching in a first grade classroom. I am happy she felt she got several useful ideas. This is the whole point of the unconference model.

Digital Citizenship and Education (ISTE NETS*T 4)

This session was really for me. I am very interested in how to present the concepts in the NETS for Teachers Digital Citizenship strand to teachers. I had three attendees. I explained that I wanted to try a protocol for the first time and asked that they'd be my guinea pig. I have to get back to everyone and get their take on what we did.


My categories for introducing ourselves were: grade Levels in the school, how much thought have they given in advance to this topic, and which of the four subcategories in the standard most interested them.


Next we got into the second part of the protocol in which the presenter chooses a question to focus the whole group. Unfortunately, we all had a different focus, so I asked everyone to take a couple of minutes and write down their thoughts and concerns in their area of interest.


Afterward, one person at a time shared their thoughts in having heard the points of view what they could share. 


I had prepared this Google Doc in advanced and tied the thoughts I had coming into the session after each person provided their concerns, questions, and insights. In some instances, ideas had come up that I hadn't considered and I added them to the document as we worked.


It was a very good hour for me...and I believe the attendees, too.

All's Well That Ends Well

I am so glad I took the time to travel down to New Teacher Camp today. Thanks to all three organizers!

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Image Citation:
Ann Oro. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6026/5993662469_9211540448.jpg Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial

ntcamp A Day Later

Yesterday a friend and I drove down to ntcamp. This was my second unconference. I wanted to capture a few thoughts about the day. My photos are in this photo set and here is the group pool.

Getting There and Starting the Day

The trip to The Boys Latin Charter School in Philly was fairly easy. We hit a few blocked roads on the way but with the help of a friendly taxi driver arrived on time. I inadvertently went to check in at the speaker's table for the morning panel discussion. A quick point in the right direction and I was signed in and ready to go.


Having experienced EdCamp Philly where I presented a session on Collaboration in the Primary Grades, I had the confidence to prepare a session for ntcamp. I knew that I needed to find the session board and register my idea with a member of the ntcamp team, so I headed over to the board to find an index card to post my intended session.


One takeaway for EdCamp NYC is to have the registration table right at the front door and make sure it is clearly labeled. Another idea is to ask each attendee to stop by the board and have a quick explanation at the board of where to get cards and how to make sure the card is logged into the spreadsheet so it appears on the web site.

Throughout the day I logged all my links in Delicious and Diigo with ntcamp10.

ntcamp Kickoff

The kickoff to the day was a little more traditional than EdCamp Philly. Andrew Marcinek kicked off the day with a little overview of what to expect. He then introduced Jerry Blumengarten who gave a very spirited kickoff to the event. He had a very high energy talk that wove different experiences he had with education over time and a variety of names of Twitter attendees near and far. 

This was followed up with a panel discussion on the concept of the PLN - a personal/professional learning network. The speakers were Steve Anderson, Mary Beth Hertz, Kyle Pace, and Tom Whitby. Considering that there would be many sessions referencing (directly or indirectly) the concept of learning with others in person and online it was a useful way to start the day. Andrew helped the panel along by moderating with key questions. The conversation flowed smoothly and wove the groups experiences and opinions in a nice, logical progression. All the speakers were well-spoken. I enjoyed listening to what they had to say.

The Sessions I Attended

The first session I attended was titled What Should a New and Experienced Teacher Know About Special Ed and Inclusion. It was run by Dan Callahan and Kristen Swanson. I received exactly what I hoped for from this session: more ideas to assist the teachers and support personal in my building with ideas to work with all students and, by extension, more ideas for my own classroom. I took notes in this Google Doc. If you want editing privileges, let me know. The information was copied from notes I typed into Kristen's Google Doc. Feel free to see if anything would help you. I tried to tag all the resources from the session along with my other UDL tags on Delicious and Diigo.


The second session was the one I ran. I called it Free Professional Development and Inspiration at Home. It was based on the content I pulled together in my blog post from a week or so ago. During the session, I pulled up this Google Site which is can be linked via a www.tinyurl.com/inspiredpd. I had a nice turnout of 10-15 people. It was satisfying to learn that most of the attendees had not heard of these sites or had heard of only a tiny percentage. In the course of 55 minutes, we looked at the links to Classroom 2.0 webinars, the K12 Online Conference, TED Talks and TEDx, iTunes University, EdCamps/unconferences, and Discovery Education's DEN. We had a short digression into Twitter's ability to find more of these types of resources on a daily basis. I had linked to Richard Byrne's post on Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter under the category of Other Opportunities on my site.

Break Time

Lunch was on our own. I had a very serendipitous encounter in a pizza store. My friend had struck up a conversation with two gentlemen at the table next to us. They were teaching a summer course at the local university. I found myself, once again, having a difficult time explaining the concept of ntcamp and shared the link to EdCamp NYC which is planned for December 4, 2010 at The School at Columbia University.

Sessions - Part II

On return from lunch, I attended Shelley Krause's session titled Talent Swap No Slidedeck! Rocket Fuel for Your PLN. In truth, I had no idea what to expect based on the title. This is potentially a downside to the unconference model. At an unconference, you are welcome to "vote with your feet" and leave if a session doesn't fit your needs. I was armed with the knowledge that Shelley was excited by an idea that she had. I had learned this via Twitter, so I wanted to see what idea she had "cooking". The cooking concept actually had a lot in common with her proposal in the session. She provided us with a set of business cards (see the image to the right). One side has a very colorful green apple (in the theme of the conference) and the other contained three prompts to fill in: Name, Twitter id/email address, and what you could offer someone in the form of your talents and experiences.


This requires further explanation. She likened it to a Christmas cookie exchange where you bring a full plate of your cookies, recipe cards for the cookies, and an empty plate. At the end of the evening you leave with a cookie platter filled with cookies from the other guests and recipe cards. We shared our information on the cards. At the end, I ended up with one card from each session attendee who I now know a little better. I share my comfort and learned about that of others in the room. We made a strong connection as a results of the sharing that we would not have otherwise. Here are my Google Doc notes from Shelly's session.


The final session was a great bookend of my first. It was titled Gifted Gab: Everything You Need to Know About the "Smart" Kids with Gerald Aungst and Paula White. After introductions around the room and sharing the one takeaway we hoped to receive in the session, we did a little brainstorming. I captured the information in this Google doc. Next Gerald and Paula extended our thoughts and shared some web sites. These are in the doc, as well as my Delicious and Diigo bookmarks tagged as gifted. At the end of the session I won a door prize. A years membership at the Simple K12 Ed Tech Unconference online. It is something I had heard about and was curious about. Now I will get to experience it. A big thank you to Simple K12 - one of ntcamps sponsors!

To Wrap It Up

I'd like to extend a big thank you to the organizers of ntcamp! I learned, share, met new people, and had fun. There were a amazing, intelligent, gregarious group of educators in Philly yesterday. 

Image Citation:
Aungst, Gerald. copyright 2010. Used with permission.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aungsts/4824087948/


Oro, Ann. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/njtechteacher/4827499946/