#EdcampEdtech Reflections

If you know me, you know how much I love to Edcamp.  The idea of spending time with educators, parents, and students who want to to collaborate in order to teach and learn in a relaxed environment free of presentations and vendors is a complete win for me.  Before discovering Edcamp, I can remember waiting around for directives to attend professional development and how let down I would often be while attending a blanketed approach to learning.  My introduction to Edcamp years ago was a game changer, and I use the tenets of Edcamp as my pulse for teacher support and in my own professional learning.

I organized my first Edcamp back in 2015 and quickly realized the importance and power Edcamps have to bring people of various backgrounds, strengths, and challenges together to learn.  You can read more of my reflections about my first Edcamp here.  Since then, I have helped to organize and plan more Edcamps than I can even count because I believe in the philosophy of empowering others to learn and grow.  However, today, I was able to experience a personal Edcamp first.  Along with a team of four other educators from California, Texas, Louisiana, and New York, I organized #EdtechEdcamp, a two hour virtual event.  It was such a great time for learning, and I think I'm still on a high.  While we're home keeping safe because of COVID-19, there was something special about taking two hours out of the day to connect with educators.  Today I feel empowered, hopeful, and connected, something I haven't felt in weeks.  If you are interested in planning a virtual Edcamp, I hope my reflections can help you plan for a successful event.

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Top 3 Takeaways

I have planned lots of face to face Edcamp events, so that experience was helpful for this event.  However, there are a few things that I had to consider during #EdcampEdtech.  Here are my top 3 takeaways. 

1. Assemble your team.  For a live event that is totally online, you want to ensure your team includes tech savvy helpers.  This way, they will be able to assist you with tech challenges.  I would also suggest working with educators who are eager about connecting, learning, and sharing.  
2. Decide on a platform for the event.  For #EdcampEdcamp, we decided to use Zoom.  Everyone on the team knew how to use the platform, and we all felt comfortable with this option for the event.  Each person had a Zoom account, so they were able to easily schedule sessions for the event and add links to the schedule for attendees.
3. Set a plan for the day.  With a virtual event, you know that you have to have a schedule that moves people along from session to session as smoothly as possible.  You want to ensure everyone knows what will happen, how it will happen, and which links and resources they will need.  We decided to create a simple grid with links for each session.  For our event, it was helpful that we had enough people to place one member from the team in each session to help facilitate and to ensure everyone was able to stay on schedule.  You can see our schedule here. 

At the end of the day, we were proud of the event.  Teachers from around the globe joined for conversations about teaching and learning.  I was able to make new connections, learn, and gain new virtual edu friends.