Thursday, April 3, 2014

Getting Ready for EdCampPGH

This weekend 6 months of planning comes to fruition! EdCampPGH is being hosted at my school this Saturday. It's been such a privilege to work with an amazing planning team I am so thankful to work with! We come together from a number of diverse schools across the city and even have students helping with planning.

For those of you new to the edcamp model, it is a form of unconference designed specifically for teachers and their needs developed in Philadelphia in 2010. What makes an unconference? Unlike traditional conferences which have schedules set months in advance by the people running the conference, an edcamp has an agenda that’s created by the participants at the start of the event. Instead of one person standing in front of the room talking for an hour, people are encouraged to have discussions and hands-on sessions. Built on principles of connected and participatory learning, EdCampPGH strives to bring teachers together to talk about the things that matter most to them: their interests, passions, and questions. Teachers who attend EdCampPGH can choose to lead sessions on those things that matter, with an expectation that the people in the room will work together to build understanding by sharing their own knowledge and questions.

NEXT Pittsburgh recently published a preview about EdCampPGH on its website. 

We are also excited to screen "If You Build It"  -  which showcases a captivating look at a radically innovative approach to education. The documentary follows designer-activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller to rural Bertie County, the poorest in North Carolina, where they work with local high school students to help transform both their community and their lives. Living on credit and grant money and fighting a change-resistant school board, Pilloton and Miller lead their students through a year-long, full-scale design and build project that does much more than just teach basic construction skills: it shows ten teenagers the power of design-thinking to re-invent not just their town but their own sense of what's possible. After the screening I will co-moderate a debrief with Alessandra Hartkopf from the Sprout Fund

I can't wait to share all of the amazing things that come out of EdCampPGH this weekend! 
Visit edcampPGH.com for more info! 



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