Edcampers Assemble!

Here’s the schedule for the day! Read the rest of this unfortunately long post for all of the info you need and some random superhero pictures!

What time is Edcamp?

Edcamp is happening THIS SATURDAY on May 3, 2014. Registration will start at 8:15. We’ll start kickoff at 8:45 and registration building First sessions start at 9:30. We’ll have lunch at some point, and wrap up with a shared debrief and Smackdown that should finish around 4:15.

How do I get to Edcamp?

Here are some helpful directions to help you get to and find parking at Microsoft’s new offices at 1 Cambridge Center. Please note that we’re NOT at the NERD this year!

Update! The below directions don’t work if you’re coming from the South because of work on the Longfellow Bridge. It’s recommended that you use a mapping service that keeps up to date traffic info in it to get to 1CC.

Directions and Parking for 1CC

Please note that parking onsite is a bit pricy at $25, so we strongly encourage taking the T or carpooling! Or you can park here for only 10! It’s a little further to walk, but way cheaper!

The entrance you’ll use to get into the building is directly off of Main Street at the corner, next to the globe sculpture.

What will we have to eat and drink?

Please bring a water bottle this year! Microsoft has excellent water filtration systems that you’ll be able to use to fill up your water bottles at no cost to us, you, or the environment! We’re not providing any bottled water this year! We will have coffee with breakfast and an assortment of soft drinks with lunch.

Breakfast will be a selection of fruit, muffins, and bagels! Coffee will be served!

Lunch will once again be an assortment of sandwiches, wraps, and chips provided by Baker’s Best and paid for by our wonderful sponsors.

We’ve done our best to try and meet a variety of dietary needs, please forgive us if we didn’t meet yours. There are some other food vendors close by if you prefer those options.

After the day is over, please join us just around the corner at Meadhall for some snacks (on us!) and adult beverages (on you!).

What will people be wearing?

If you’re looking for assistance at any point in the day, look for an organizer. You’ll be able to tell who the organizers are, because we’ll be wearing green shirts with this year’s awesome logo.

If you were smart enough to prepurchase an Edcamp Boston tshirt with your registration, you’ll get our awesome logo on blue.

Are you now disappointed that you didn’t purchase a shirt in advance? Well, we have a very limited number of extra shirts that will be available for purchase the morning of the event! Would you believe these will go for only $20 (cash only!)? We promise we’ll totally put that money towards future Edcamp awesomeness.

What sessions will there be?

We don’t know yet! Edcamp is completely based around the interests, passions, and questions that we all bring with us the morning of the event! During the first hour or so we’ll collaboratively build the schedule to fit our needs. If you want to facilitate a session, you just go up to the board, slap a sticky note with a catchy title on it, and then get out of the way so other people can add theirs. It sounds crazy if you’ve never been to an Edcamp before, but we swear that it works every single time.

What should my sessions look like?

A good Edcamp session should involve the people in the room as much as possible. We’re all called participants for a reason! Don’t stand in front of the room and lecture at people or give a presentation from a slide deck. Have a real conversation. Invite questions and responses from everybody in the room. Do something hands-on. Practice awesome pedagogy, basically.

Last year Edcamp Boston had one of the best schedules I’ve ever seen at an Edcamp. Last year everybody seriously brought their A-game and focused on serious pedagogy, teaching, and learning. It wasn’t a bunch of sessions about sharing tools, but instead featured rich discussions about the things people are actually doing in their classrooms. This is our fourth Edcamp Boston, and we look forward to all of you creating something even more awesome.

What should I do if I go to a session and it doesn’t work for me?

Hey, it happens to all of us sooner or later. Maybe you realize the conversation isn’t going in a useful direction for you. Maybe you misunderstood what the session would be about by the title. Maybe it’s not your kind of thing. Maybe you get really engrossed into a side conversation with somebody and decide to take it out into the hallway. Maybe there’s another session at the same time you also want to check out! Or, unfortunately, maybe somebody’s lecturing, or running a session that feels like a sales pitch instead of a discussion.

Vote with your feet.

If, for any reason, you decide you’d rather be elsewhere, just leave the room! It’s totally cool. It’s not rude to leave the room during an Edcamp. It’s just you recognizing that, in that moment, you feel your learning would be maximized by going somewhere else. You are not insulting the facilitator, who should expect that some people will move in and out of the room during the session time.

If it doesn’t move you, get moving.

How can I connect online and share all of the learning I’m doing?

We’ll be using hashtag #edcampbos on Twitter and any other website that uses them (Instagram, Vine, Flickr, Facebook, etc, etc, etc)

Of course, you can also join us on our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

This post was too long! Can you remind me what I should bring, then?

Sure!

• Water bottle
• An empty stomach so none of our food goes to waste
• Cash (if you want to buy a t-shirt)
• Great ideas for sessions
• An open mind for learning
• Laptop/iPad/personal learning device of choice

Will I learn something and have fun?

Yes!