Edcampphilly

This weekend, I attended Edcampphilly once again.  I'd hoped I'd escaped the wandering photog's eye, but no dice!

Photo Credit:  Kevin Jarrett (https://flic.kr/p/nnuHwM)

I somehow found myself wearing my shy hat once again.  On the car ride in, Marc Seigel, Kate Baker, and I discussed a plan for leading a session together, but it didn't work out.  My confidence is way down, and I am very much in a don't have anything good to share place.

So, I went to a bunch of sessions.  I found out some really cool things Google has developed, thanks to Google Meister Rich Kiker.  I'll pretty much go to anything Rich is presenting, so I completely got what I came for in the first session.  Here's my notes from the session.  I really like the theme he centered his demo on; the idea that we should no longer prepare our students to use a particular platform (Office, for example) but rather teach them the skills so they can use whatever platform is thrust on them (Google Apps, for example).

From there, I bounced around a lot.  It was hard for me to find sessions to attend.  I chose not to go to the session on 20% time, since I'm already doing that.  I probably should have, since I would have gotten some ideas on how others are doing it so I could improve, but I went to something else.

Lunch was a delicious visit to the Shake Shack.  Yum.  So glad we found a large group going there since it didn't come up in my searching.

On our ride home, we talked a lot about how being Edcamp old-hats (oldies?), we've discovered that there are usually more folks new to Edcamp than those who've been to at least one before.  It really changes the dynamic of the day, and we need to participate in the sessions differently.  It's easy to sit in a session and take the learning, but it's tough (especially when I'm wearing my "shove Baby in the corner" hat) to lead one.   So, to somehow find that confidence to lead and share, or to find some ideas to start a conversation, or to find some takeaways to share with others!