Saturday 2 August 2014

We're Going on a Road Trip - and Another Saturday of Learning

I love learning and I love meeting face to face with those educators who are now my friends.

Marnel Van der Spuy (@1MvdS), Alex Le Long (ariaporo22) and myself (@mrs_hyde) rose very early and faced the Saturday morning darkness, fog and traffic to head north to Educamp Auckland.  This year it was hosted by Western Heights Primary in Henderson.

What a full room greeted us! All the usual shrieks and hugs of course, as tweeps from Nelson (@allanahk), Hamilton (@barbs1, @teachernz, @annagerrit), Napier (@Juliet_Revell, @maloneynz) and my lovely Auckland friends - @CaroBush, @digitallearnin, @helenoftroy, @MeganCroll1) I've left out so many but you know who you are!) - got together.  We've met on Twitter, and as we share similar ideas and passions about learning, we get on incredibly well!

Finally set eyes on @ReidHns1, @missesartech - lots of new friends to make too.

The smackdown is always a great sharing of ideas, and @FionaGrant was very efficient with the buzzer.  I shared a number of slides too:


Next off to the breakouts.  These are planned from post -it notes. participants choose what they would like to know more about and a timetable is created. 

First stop: Coding. The group decided to create a coding club for teachers in which to share progress on code.org as we upskill ourselves. This was chosen as a great site to start for teachers from all sectors. This Google+ community will also allow us to share other learnings, musings and resources about coding. Thanks to Lesley (@Lasampsonater)and Tanya (@tanya) for getting us going!



Next: Minecraft. Thanks to Mark McLay for allowing us to play on his networked app on the ipads. Had a lot of fun with the other participants! I'm going to get back to him about how he has set up Minecraft at his school.

The last breakout was with Fiona and Amy (@AmyMMcCauley) to discuss applying for the Google teacher academy. The deadline was on Thursday ...maybe next year?


A final giggle at the airport as we saw the Napier tweeps off, and it was back on the road, where ideas and pedagogy are well thrashed by the time we reach Rotorua later in the evening!






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