Several School Districts Represented at EdCamp

by Ronnie Zamora/LFCISD

EdCamp, a new trend in professional learning for educators, entails discussions and conversations that are teacher-centered but inspired by students. Unlike a typical educational conference, there are no official presenters or conference program.

More than 100 participants attended EdCamp Oct. 22 at Los Fresnos High School. Several RGV school districts were represented including Los Fresnos, Point Isabel, Brownsville, San Benito, Harlingen, and Ingleside. All Los Fresnos CISD secondary campuses were represented, and three elementary school campuses sent representatives.

Session topics are teacher-driven and organized by the EdCamp committee based on participant suggestions.

Participants receive two index cards upon registration. One card states, “I want to learn…” while the other states, “I would like to share…” and these cards are used to create the spontaneous session board on the fly.

While the committee is creating the session board using sticky notes and painters tape, along with a virtual board using Google docs, participants are working in collaborative groups and sharpening their critical thinking and problem solving skills to unlock the mystery of their “break-out box.” The theme for this year’s EdCamp Breakout box was “Time Warp: Communication over Time.”

There were three 45-minute sessions throughout the morning varying in topics from engaging technology tools such as Edmodo, Nearpod, Kahoot, Twitter, Gizmos, and Reflex Math and more broad topics such as co-planning, student motivation, working with special populations, parent communication, and project based learning.

Breakfast and door prizes were provided by 20 local sponsors including Chick-Fil-A, Chili’s, ExploreLearning, Hobby Town, HEB, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Target and Teacher Builder.

► MORE PHOTOS AT www.flickr.com/photos/losfresnos/sets/