This was my first experience with EdCamp, it was a conference where the participants decide on the topics that will be discussed. I am no where near an expert on it so if you would like more information about EdCamps check out this website https://digitalpromise.org/edcamp/.
The first topic I attended was Parent/Guardian communication which we quickly re-named to “Home Team” communication to better fit the variety of families students come from. We addressed the importance of having frequent communication, possibly in the form of a weekly email, and getting family input on how they prefer to communicate (email, phone call, or face to face). We also acknowledged that families often get calls from the teacher when the student has done something negative and that is it important to share the positive parts of the student’s day as well.
As a teacher we discussed how to deal with negative feedback or comments from families. We thought about waiting 24 hours to reply to upsetting emails or suggesting an in person meeting so no miscommunication happens. We also said that having an admin member or another teacher attend meetings where you feel unsure or unsafe about how the meeting will go. It is also important when talking to families that you only state facts and do not allow your own emotions to affect the information you give about students. Overall, we touched on a lot of important points and were able to bounce ideas off each other on how to make Home Team communication a positive experience, not a scary thing we are worried about.
I then attended the end of the topic on using Scratch to teach students about coding. One of the students from the other cohort lead the discussion as they had experience with the program and were passionate about coding. I come with no experience with coding so I enjoyed seeing how the program worked and talking about how we can use the program with students. It reminded me of when I was in upper elementary school and we used a program to make stop motion videos in computer class. Interactive, educational tools like those are really engaging to students and make learning an enjoyable process. I feel like I need to learn more abut Scratch to learn how to make it work in the classroom but I have no doubt it would be something students would enjoy. I think Scratch is great if you already know a bit about coding but I feel like you would need to give some lessons on what coding is and what difference commands mean before you let students explore Scratch or else they may get frustrated.
27 February 2022 at 5:37 pm
Hello, Kasey.
Nice job finding a stock photo for EdCamp; I had to use the one photo I took myself and milk it for all it was worth. I also found your addition of an introductory video for Scratch helpful, as I didn’t attend that workshop myself and had never heard of it before.
You believe Scratch would be useful “if you already know a bit of coding,” but admit to having no experience with it yourself. Was it difficult for you to follow the talk, or to get ideas on how to implement it? I wonder if pointing your readers to some additional resources, selected to give more knowledge about coding itself, might have been useful to readers in the same position as yourself.
For instance, on YouTube, Ted-Ed put up a 10-episode video series entitled “Think Like a Coder,” which introduce the core principles of computer coding (i.e., loops, conditional statements, etc.), although that might be a bit higher-level than what I gathered from the introductory Scratch video you provided. If you want to give future students “a few lessons on what coding is,” and if it is available in your area, I recommend the Let’s Talk Science Outreach “Driving Towards the Future” visit. It has some nice introduction to basic movement coding. (Listed here: https://outreach.letstalkscience.ca/uvic/local-programs/classroom-community-visits.html , near the bottom of the page.)