This year I started a new career. I left my teaching position after 30 years and started a brand new career at the Edcamp Foundation. I am the outreach manager in charge of their new District Initiative, Edcamp Encore, PBS Edcamp, and the Fee for Service offerings. This career change is great undertaking and allows me to work with amazing educators across the country.
This year, we have held over a dozen PBS Edcamps at PBS stations in Cookeville, Tennessee, New York City, Tallahassee, Florida, Detroit, Michigan, Wisconsin, Austin and San Antonio, Texas, Louisiana, Baltimore, Maryland, Montana,and Pennsylvania. I filmed a webinar and conducted 3 phone calls per station to get the PBS Edcamps up and running. I worked closely with PBS national and their station representatives. I also located Edcamp organizers close to the stations to ensure the success of the PBS Edcamp pilots. Our targeted audience for the pilots are early childhood educators and daycare workers. PBS and Edcamp know that a successful foundation for a child is vitally important to ensure their future success. If you get a chance to attend one of these PBS Edcamps, I say do it! You will be inspired by the incredible work these early childhood educators are doing across the country.
The Edcamp District Initiative also took off this year. This work allows me to meet teachers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Newark, New Jersey, Queens, New York and Florence, South Carolina. Each district wide initiative is shaped to meet the needs of the school district. In Philadelphia, we had an Open Educational Resource focus. In Newark, we worked first with administrators and then designed our second Edcamp around culture and climate. In Queens, we will be working on checking for understanding. In South Carolina, I will work with teacher fellows and design our focus around empowering educators who work with students in poverty.
The District Initiative work includes training a team of educators to be Edcamp Specialists. So far this year, I have trained over 130 Edcamp Specialists. These specialist will now be able to continue the implementation of the Edcamp model into their districts. The educators I have met welcome Edcamp with open arms. They feel inspired and now have a platform to share their expertise, to problem solve, to learn from other educators and share best practices. In the next school year, the District Initiative will be in New Mexico, Missouri and continue in Queens, New York. I am working on securing 1 final district.
I am now in the process of spreading the word about our Edcamp Encore Day. This is an Edcamp held after your initial Edcamp. We look at the session boards, look at your school’s goals, and develop a focus for our Edcamp Encore Day. We survey your staff and identify the teachers who are skilled in the focus area. We also hire some experts in the field to help facilitate sessions or to do a keynote address to kick off the Edcamp Encore Day.
If your district is interested in having an Edcamp contact me at cynthia@edcamp.org. Visit our website: edcamp.org
