#ECOO11 - Great connections, conversations and learning

ECOO11 was a first for me for many reasons. It was my first time attending. It was my first time meeting people face to face that I had communicated with on twitter. AND, it was my first time a conference was so closely connected to my current professional PD that the conversations, and learnings are continuing and building as we continue to connect.

I had hoped to share my conference notes via my livescribe.com notes that I took with audio but I’m having a bit of trouble with ‘ghost’ text from previous pages showing up on my ECOO notes pages that make the pages hard to read… I’ll try and see if I can fix the problem and may repost this with them at a later date.

The conference a-ha’s started the day before when @shannoninottawa (Shannon Smith) shared her flipped workshop format with us via twitter. With the pre-conference chatter and this open sharing the conference had begun.

Conference Tag-line: Play to learn and learn to play… and play we did… and it began in the Keynote.

Sheryl (Sheryl Nussbaum Beach) and Will (Will Richardson) changed things up in their keynote and engaged and challenged us in active learning right away and we were off and running. http://plpwiki.com/ECOO+2011

The tag line game got us thinking differently right away and was touched on throughout the conference and in the time since, especially with the #plpnetwork learning and sharing.

Thursday Sessions:

1. Facebook in the Classroom with Mark Carbone@markwcarbone

What mattered for me in this session is that leadership is important. Waterloo District School Board was able to move ahead and use Facebook as a classroom tool for those teachers that wanted to use it. The leadership (Mark Carbone) didn’t created a separate appropriate use policy to support Facebook in the classroom (or beyond the classroom) He used existing policy to support and drive its effective use. Appropriate supports and encouragement were put in place and communication with parents and community was open and consistent. Hearing the teacher’s voice and their stories of its use and success was very inspiring. Good conversation in the session.

2. Collaboration: Practice it, learn it, teach it with @hadleyjf

What mattered for me in this session was that it didn’t matter that Hadley wasn’t in the room with us for her presentation but that she brought us to her classroom (in Philadelphia) and led us through collaborative practices in a collaborative and engaging way. Really enjoyed the session and what we produced and shared in our individual groups.

3. Pecha Kucha with Jamie Weir (@msjweir) and friends (@markwcarbone, @shadiyazan, Cal Armstrong @sig225,and @jaccalder)

What mattered for me was the format of this session and the excellent information shared by each of the pecha kucha presenters. This format is fast, informative and fun. Love the use of personal images and cartoons to complement each speakers topic and presentation.

4. Our Digital Footprints with Zoe Branigan-Pipe (@zbpipe) and Royan Lee (@royanlee)

What mattered for me was the discussion that took place in the session and continued beyond the session and into the social event. Google yourself and see how you are represented - do you like what you see?? How do you feel as an educator about creating and maintaining a digital presence? How do you feel as a parent about your own children’s digital presence?

Educators Digital Footprint Google Doc

Friday Sessions:

1. Bringing Them Along: Involving Students in your Travel and Research w/ Michael McVey (@mmcvey)

http://japannearby.blogspot.com/

What mattered for me was how you could create artifacts from your travels and bring them back to your students to learn from and create with. You can share your travel experiences with your students so that they better understand culture and geography and they can use the artifact to create their own meaning.

2. Future Forums Project: Building the Classroom of the Future…

Scott Kemp, Anne Doelman, Emily Schmuck, Ken Quarrie, Christy Wood (and @snbeach look-a-like), Rob Woldeck, Barb Ayre and Dave Lambert

Great collaborative presentation by a group of 7 grade 10 educators from Waterloo District School Board (what is it about Waterloo District :) and their cross-curricular teaching project that is now in year 2 and will be branching out to incude 7 more classes in the near future.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/70117093/FFP-Presentation-ECOO

What mattered for me is the information they shared and their unique personal experiences and perspectives that they brought to the project.

The discussion was lead with the following guides/topics: (from my notes)

  • Collaboration
  • Technology
  • Inquiry based learning
  • Cross-Curricular Integration
  • Assessments

The comment that stuck with me from this was from @englishschmuck “I am a different teacher because of this.”

3. Survival with your staff: Adventures in Technology Teachers Training with Alanna King @banana29

Google Survey results from the session.

What mattered most for me was the questions that we were tasked with and that we need to be mindful of when we plan or conduct Technology 'training’ with our educators.

Q1. How to start supports for your staff?

Q2. How do you support differentiated learning for your staff and the tools that they use?

Q3. How do you sustain the (their) enthusiasm?

4. ECOO Web 2.0 Face-off

https://sites.google.com/site/ecoofaceoff2011/power-play

What mattered most for me was what a full-body experience this was, just like a real hockey game. The resources shared and how they were tied to learning was AWESOME. Loved that there was a tweet stream (twitterfall.com), an announcer/master of ceremonies (Anita Brooks-Kirkfield), expert analysts (Brenda Sherry and Peter Skillen), twitter play by play commentator (Andy Forgrave) and that it was broadcast live on the radio #ds106radio.

Team 1 (Red): Doug Peterson, Colleen Rampelt and Rick Budding

Team 2 (Blue): Zoe Branigan-Pipe, Diana Maliszewski, and Roger Nevin

Audience participation was key, in fact, the 3rd period of play was handed over to the audience and here is the wallwisher of what was shared.

Both teams were excellent and the collegiality between them could serve as a good model for Brendan Shanahan and the NHL :)

Special thanks go to the ECOO11 organizers @brendasherry and @peterskillen and the awesome ECOO11 organizing committee and to @willrich45 and @snbeach for setting the tone for our learning in their opening keynote which challenged to focus on what changes we were willing to make and explicitly state in our tag lines… mine is “Don’t get stuck”… physically, mentally, institutionally, or personally!