Monthly Archives: April 2014

A Very Merry Unconference #EDCampPGH

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A Bit of Background

I first heard of EdCamp from a fellow blogger, Darin Johnston @AnIowaTeacher, in his blog post My #edcampMadWI Expereince.  His blog post had piqued my interest, and I recently had been to another unconference, Pod Camp Pittsburgh, #pcpgh8, with my tech-savvy boyfriend (who is the brains behind this blog operation).  We learned a lot at Pod Camp about blogging, search engine optimization and social media, so I figured trying a education-focused unconference would be a great way to learn more about current trends in education and connect with other educators.

So You Might be Wondering, “What is an “Unconference”?”

Yesterday, I attended the unconfence, EdCamp PGH, #edcamppgh, which is kind of like a professional development conference, except its not!  What makes EdCamp different than a conferences is that class offerings and schedule are completely determined by the participants.  At the start of the day participants jot topics they want to learn more about on sticky notes and post stick them on a piece of chart paper.  Then there is another chart with a table, where the session times are listed down the side and the available rooms are listed across the top. If someone feels they are confident in moderating the discussion they move the topic from the first chart and place it in a time slot and a room.  From there the organizers put the schedule up on the website, so participants can access it from our lap tops, tablets and smart phones.

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The Story of an App, Some Books and a Cow?

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Background: Apps, Books and Cows… you are probably wondering what these things have in common.  It all began back in February when we had two back-to-back non-fiction texts in our Harcourt Trophies reading book, At Home Around the World and Me on the Map.  As you can probably decipher from the titles these selections had a geography focus.  My passion, as you know is utilizing educational technology, so I wanted to find a project that would incorporate technology and geography.  I always wanted to do a Flat Stanley project, so I started exploring my options.  I found there was an iPad app that was free and and Edmodo app that cost $20.00.  I figured I would try the iPad app out first to see how I liked it. Continue reading