RMHS EdCamp #1-Top Four Takeaways

This past Monday, RMHS held its first EdCamp. After talking to people, it sounded like although the first session was a little awkward to start as there weren’t any official presenters, but once everyone got the hang of it, the conversations were awesome. We are an incredible collection of dedicated, intelligent, hard-working teachers and it is very powerful to get groups of us together to talk about best practices for student achievement.

While we weren’t able to attend all of the sessions, here are some of our top four takeaways.

Student Feedback: As we learn more about our 1:1 environment, increased student feedback is a great place to look to leverage technology. Using programs such as rubrics and mastery reporting in Schoology, Autocrat, DocAppender can help us as teachers more easily give students feedback beyond  “just a score”. This increased feedback allows students to learn more from their own work and adjust their learning for continued success. Some of these tools even allow us to facilitate peer to peer feedback.

High-tech vs. Low-tech vs. No-tech: In the session about Socratic Seminars, everyone had a variety of ideas for creating positive, engaging environments for student-led discussions. Some ideas were high-tech using backchanneling with sites like Today’s Meet and Schoology discussion boards to low-tech ideas like having the students watch a video on Socratic Seminars (Thanks, Joy!) for better understanding to no-tech ideas like using red, yellow, and green cards on a student’s desk to give them encouragement to share more (or less) in the discussion. The beauty of the discussion during the session was that the conversation wasn’t led by the need for technology (or rebellion against it)-the discussion was led by the idea of creating a successful, student-led lesson and then choosing the best strategy to help students achieve that objective.

Classroom management: Having a 1:1 classroom can be amazingly full of possibilities...it can also be amazingly full of distractions. Is there a magic bullet? Probably not. We are all different teachers, use the iPads in different ways, and have different expectations in our classrooms. Should we keep having productive conversations about best practices and what is working (and what isn’t)? Absolutely.   

Keeping up the conversation: Several people asked about the availability of resources based on conversations we had on Monday. In Schoology, the RMHS EdTech team has the “One-Stop Shop” with a plethora of resources that are very specific to our life here at RMHS. Topics cover everything from how to use iMovie to logging into SFS to finding out more about approved apps. Additionally, when you are there, you will find that the top resource is a discussion board. With our busy schedules, we don’t always have the time to meet face-to-face to brainstorm and get/offer support. This discussion board can help provide us with a place to get each other’s help virtually. For example, you would like to plan a lesson that (fill in the objective here) or you want to (insert idea here). Post it on the discussion board and we can provide each other with ideas/suggestions/support!    

Wondering what went on at some of the other sessions? Check out the agenda for shared notes!

What were your top takeaways from EdCamp? Share them in the comments section!

Interested in learning more about something discussed at the EdCamp? Post it on the Schoology discussion board or talk to one of us! Do you like individual attention to learn something new? Schedule an appointment with us! Is there an idea you’d like to see in the blog? Let us know and we’ll work on it!