Although EdCamp Coachella was a week ago, I still wanted to write my reflections and experiences with the event to offer up any takeaways that might help others. If you want to check out some of the highlights from the event, I definitely encourage you to checkout the hashtag #EdCampCoachella on Twitter. 
To start off, I want to thank Eduardo Rivera (@EdTechEddie), Ruby Rivera (@MrsRubyRivera), Karen Foerch (@kfoerch), Jessica Pack (@Packwoman208), Bhavini Patel (@Msbpatel), Ursula Fabiano (@MissUrsy), and Cyndi Furr (@FurrCyn) for allowing me to be a part of the planning committee. We were determined to bring a tri-district event to the Coachella Valley and I think we were successful! We began planning through Google Hangouts at the end of July. We listed out some tasks and divided them among the team. These consisted of venue, sponsorships, prizes, swag, and of course the official EdCamp Coachella shirts and sunglasses (after all we were definitely going for the Coachella theme haha). This was my first time being on a planning committee for an event like this so it was definitely a learning experience for me. After a lot of hard work, a couple of months, and a series of follow up Google Hangouts calls we were ready!
EdCamp Coachella took place last Saturday October 21st. We had over 90 educators register and about 40 showed up which was a nice intimate group so tons of learning was definitely going to take place! Every attendee received a pair of official EdCamp green and black sunglasses and breakfast
(sponsored by the Coachella Valley Teachers Association; thanks guys!!). As people were eating, a slide deck of some of the EdCamp rules were on display so people knew what the heck they were getting into. A couple of veterans put up some sessions and pretty soon people were getting the hang of it and the board filled up fast.
During session 1, I wanted to make sure I got some pictures and a little bit of each session so I bounced back and forth between the three rooms. Some of the rest of us were doing the same thing so our Twitter feed was getting populated with some really good content! One of the heavily attended sessions in the morning was Classcraft. If you haven’t heard of Classcraft then you definitely should check it out! It’s a gamified classroom management program that allows students to earn XP points and level ups as they complete assignments and tasks in your class in sort of a World of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons vibe. It’s super cool especially for upper elementary, middle school, or high school. Definitely a great way to keep kids engaged so why not mix your world and theirs! During Session 1, Seesaw Ambassador Jennifer Dean (@Miss_Dean) was showing how to app smash a couple of apps with Seesaw. One of my favorites was mixing in Chatterpix to let students put their own creative spin on reflections and assignments. Just an FYI, Seesaw is a great tool for building in student portfolios at the elementary level and higher, and Chatterpix lets you put a mouth and voice on any picture. Tons of fun!
For Session 2, I didn’t get into any other sessions because I was co-facilitating a Twitter session with Cyndi Furr. There were many different levels of Twitter users in the room so it was a blast! We started off with some of the basics about what it means to “Like” a tweet, retweet vs quote tweet, and how to update some of your profile information. It was heavily emphasized that it’s important that you are strategic with who you follow because that determines the type of content in your feed. After a little bit of an overview, we started talking about hashtags and specifically #EdCampCoachella (which is why it was good that some of us were tweeting during the first session, a strategic move on our part to facilitate a Twitter session in one of the middle to late sessions of the day.) The participants were able to see how Twitter can be used as a way to share what’s happening around them and to share ideas they might have around different topics. After checking out the hashtag, we jumped straight into a live Twitter chat! I posed questions asking them what they learned so far at the EdCamp, who they’ve been able to network with, and what they hope to implement right away. They got the hang of the Q1/A1 format and were tweeting away! It was an awesome session, and being a Twitter addict myself, it’s always nice to open the door for others to meet new people and find resources that are going to help them in the classroom.
During Session 3, I joined the Google Classroom session. Many of the teachers who attended from my district were in this session so I wanted to make sure I was there for support. Cyndi Furr, an EdTech TOSA from DSUSD, facilitated the session and showed the attendees some of the basics for getting started with Google Classroom. Participants learned differences between announcements, assignments, and questions, as well as how to create a “copy” for students when assigning work. At one point, I mentioned how with iPads there is the ability to annotate Google Docs and PDFs within the app so that you don’t have to use a 3rd party application, so the conversation started to switch and we were able to share how this was done. This is the beauty of the “unconference” format because the conversations and learning take a very organic transformation depending on the needs of the people in the room.
After the third session, we all met back in the great room for lunch, recap, and prizes. Lunch was provided by the Palm Springs Teachers Association (another huge thank you to PSTA for sponsoring lunch!). As people ate lunch, a Flipgrid (www.flipgrid.com/569d86) was put up so that people could reflect. Flipgrid is a great tool for having students/adults create short videos for reflection or sharing ideas. Check it out and catch the #FlipgridFever. After reflections, we had several vendor sponsors provide free subscriptions and other items including a Samsung Tablet (thank you Desert Sands Teacher Association!), so we had several winners and some even grabbed the widely sought-after EdCamp Coachella T-shirt! We ended around 1pm, and the organizing committee cleaned up and went to debrief at the Yard House!
Overall, it was a blast! I’m glad to have been a part of the planning committee and to see how much work goes on behind the scenes. We’ve been asked to do another one at some point this year so we will see! One person even asked for quarterly events which might take a toll on the planning committee so we will have to recruit some more people to the team so we can take shifts haha. I want to thank all of those who came out on a Saturday morning. It’s never easy to take time out of your day off and from your families, but I know when it comes to an EdCamp it is at least somewhat worth it because the amount of learning is amazing! The connections forged at these events last throughout the rest of the school year and beyond. If you weren’t able to make it, and/or can’t get enough of this style of professional learning, then I seriously encourage you to join Twitter. I can’t say it enough, but Twitter has completely changed my career and my educational philosophy and I think anyone can benefit. Give it a shot and follow me (this isn’t supposed to be a shameless plug) and we can learn together!
Thanks for reading and until next time, enjoy the journey!
-Eddie
