CC Image from http://flic.kr/p/2PRN1v

During the past few years I have been involved in a number of conversations around the topic of assessment. One key struggle that I have is the many ways in which the term “formative assessment” is defined. For some educators, formative assessment involves altering our teaching practices based on quantitative data we get from tests, quizzes, and assignments. I believe there is a role for this; however, to other educators formative assessment is Assessment For Learning (AFL) – not something that is done after we teach but more a philosophy about HOW we teach. It is more than just about checking for progress but also about including students in the process of planning, teaching, and reflecting. AFL is not something that is an add-on for teachers; it is a different lens to view student learning as well as a different overall philosophy of how we teach.

One of the best ways I have seen to explain and model Assessment for Learning (or formative assessment) was observed and learned through my attendance at the British Columbia Educational Leadership Council (BCELC) two year seminar series which included deep discussions on leadership and AFL led by Caren Cameron, Yrsa Jensen, Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert (based on the work of educators such as Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black).

BCELC used Black and Wiliam’s definition of Assessment for Learning as:

Any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting pupil’s learning.

Click here to access a previous post that describes the difference between Assessment FOR Learning and Assessment OF Learning.

BCELC (Cameron, Jensen) introduced the 6 BIG AFL PRACTICES as (please note that these are taken directly or adapted from BCELC):

1. Clear Learning Intentions: let students know (in a language they can understand) what they are expected to learn.
2. Criteria: work WITH learners to develop criteria of what quality looks like.
3. Descriptive Feedback: increase descriptive feedback (ongoing dialogue around improvement in learning that causes thinking) and decrease evaluative feedback (numbers, letters, and “good job”). Note: Education researcher John Hattie, in his book “Visible Learning“, notes that using descriptive feedback is THE single most powerful thing we can use to increase student learning. Please read Peter Jory’s great post on feedback here.
4. Powerful Questions: increase quality “thinking” questioning to go deeper and show evidence of learning. Move away from factual routine questions. TALK LESS, ASK MORE. For more on quality questions from BCELC click here.
5. Self and Peer Assessment: Scaffolding of learning of self- and peer assessment in a supportive, collaborative environment enables learners to become thoughtful about all aspects of their learning. Heidi Andrade writes “If students produce it, they can assess it; and if they assess it, they can improve it.” For more on self/peer from BCELC click here.
6. Student Ownership: centres on metacognitive awareness and action. Metacognition is enhanced only when students have explicit understandings related to all other aspects of AFL – and are able to take ownership for their learning as a result. Black and Wiliam add, “Have the learner become aware of his/her own thinking – what are my strengths? What do I need to get better at? What is my next step?”. For more on ownership from BCELC, click here.

I cannot say enough about BCELC and how inspiring it was for me. Changing the lens of assessment not only changed the way I assess, but also how I teach, lead, and learn.

Although not exactly like being part of the seminar series, the portion of a webcast series by Cameron and Jensen titled “A focus on Informed Assessment Practices”, including all the slides and resources, can be accessed here (#3) and here (#4). (I highly recommend this).

For a quick prezi I did up last year (based on this info), click here or see below.

I encourage you to describe the impact AFL has made on your students in the comment section below.

Join us on Thursday for a chat on #bcedplan

“What would curriculum look like in a personalized learning system?”

This is a question that has been on many of our minds since the Ministry of Education released the BC Education Plan and began promoting the movement toward personalized learning.

On Thursday, January 19 at 4:30 pm PST, Education Minister George Abbott will be chatting with interested people on Twitter.  The topic will be the aforementioned question regarding curriculum and personalized learning and the hashtag #bcedplan will be used.

Cale Birk (@birklearns), Johnny Bevacqua (@johnnybevacqua) and I will be moderating the discussion and although @GeorgeAbbottBC will not be able to answer every question, he will try to respond to as many as he can.  Side chats always happen during these chats so feel free to engage in dialogue with others but please be sure to use the hashtag #bcedplan.  Also, you do not need to be on Twitter, you can follow along by clicking here and refreshing the site during the chat.

As this is the second time the Minister has engaged in a Twitter chat, I will repeat what David Wees (who is unfortunately unable to moderate this one) stated in his blog promoting the first one:

We are considering this an open dialogue so that anyone with an interest in education in British Columbia is welcome to participate. This includes, but is not limited to, teachers, administrators, school support staff, parents, school trustees, media personnel, and students. We welcome both participants from the private and public sectors of education, since George Abbott is the minister of all education in BC. We are even happy to have participants from outside of British Columbia participate.

Please be aware that the chat will be very fast, and George Abbott will not be able to respond to every reply sent his way. However, it will still be an opportunity to express our opinion, and potentially shape the vision of education in British Columbia.

I do believe that we are having some very powerful conversations in BC Education; the challenge is to put those conversations into action.  I am hoping that the dialogue with @georgeabbottbc will give us a better picture what curriculum will look like in a personalized learning model of BC Education.  Hope you can join us.

First taste of cake... not so sure.

A little over a year ago, two tiny little girls arrived in my life that changed my world forever.  In the past year my wife and I have tried to teach them so much: how to eat, sleep, sit up, crawl, walk, and now talk…. but this pales in comparison to what my beautiful daughters have taught me.

They have taught me that no matter what is happening in my life outside of the home, nothing is more important than being in our home… being present… being in the moment.

They have taught me that a baby’s giggle can turn any moment into a happy one.

They have taught me to celebrate the steps in learning in each child; growth happens in each child at different times and in different ways… embrace it.

They have taught me to leave and arrive home every day with a huge grin as they “wave” to me in our front window.

They have taught me that the mere presence of an infant, let alone two, can strike up happy conversations with random people that would have never occurred without babies being there… and how I need to have more conversations with people whom I sit near in coffee shops.

They have taught me that I can survive on a few minutes of sleep per night for many months and still wake up with a smile.

They have taught me that curiosity is the root of all learning… and that so many things around us are fascinating.

They have taught me that no matter the generation, babies bring joy to those around them.

They have taught me there is nothing like the beautiful gaze, gentle touch, warm hug, softly held hand or sloppy fish kiss from an infant.

They have taught me to value wellness over everything else.. as what I want for my children above all else is to be healthy and happy.

Most of all, they have taught me that life is all about the little moments… to stop and enjoy them because they pass so quickly.

A year ago… my world changed.  Thank you to my beautiful wife and daughters for all you have taught me and for making this past year the most amazing of my life.  Happy birthday to my little monkeys.

Thank you to all my friends, family, and staff who have supported our family this past year. 

Here is a video I made for my family… thanks to Marty Stevens for the song idea.

CC Image from http://flic.kr/p/aDX4de

The title of this post is a bit misleading.  It is not social media that is changing education, it is the people involved in education who are collaborating by sharing great ideas and challenging others to continue to grow as learners.

Before social media, there were pockets of brilliance in every school, district, and education system but very few people knew about them.  In some countries education was (and still is) viewed as a “race to the top” in which you do not share ideas, you hoard them and hope that your ideas are better than others’.  Schools competing with each other do not share ideas and, as a result, they do not grow as effectively.  What social media has done is allowed the spreading of great ideas in more efficient manner.  Educators in British Columbia can connect and learn from practices taking place anywhere in the world; in addition, they can receive feedback on ideas from any people interested in education.   Good ideas not only become viral but these same ideas also grow to become even better.  I love stealing ideas (and giving credit) from other educators.  George Couros told me one time, “the more people I connect with on Twitter, the more ideas I can steal to make our school better.”

Yes, we still have rankings of schools and countries and these do create much harm and stress; however, as Chris Kennedy said, we can now connect with educators in the other countries to find out what they are doing well and how we can work together to bring those ideas into our own systems.  Let’s be honest, do we want ONLY our students to do well or do we want ALL students to do well?  Can we help create a better society if we are only helping students within our walls to be great?  We don’t hope to be the best by knocking everyone else down… we hope to be GREAT alongside those who we work and grow with.

On Saturday, I had another great edcamp experience at Edcamp Fraser Valley.  The Edcamp experience is highly promoted through Twitter and blogs and the actual day can almost be like a microcosm for Social Media.  We had sessions facilitated and participated by parents, teachers, professors, admin, and students (from elementary through university) and it was all about sharing great ideas and making them better.  People left the edcamp reflecting on how they are going to bring these to their school or learning community… and they left with connections to people that can help them to do this.  We meet people who have like interests that inspire us and we meet people who respectfully disagree and cause us to look at things through a different lens (in my opinion, this is what we need to see more of in social media – those intellectual collisions that help us grow). Edcamps and social media are driven by passionate participants who want to share a voice in education.

Social Media is a place  in which there is less hierarchy (I realize it still exists).  Prior to social media, the idea of me connecting with the author of the book I just read or the keynote speaker I just heard would have been absurd; now, I almost expect to be able to continue the discussions with others, including the speaker or author, through social media.  Also, when conversations are occurring on Twitter, I rarely know the formal position of the person I am chatting with as it is about the dialogue, not the position.  We purposely did not include position or affiliation on our name tags at EdcampFV for this reason… it is not about where you work or what you do but more about what ideas you bring to the discussion.

Gone are the days when we believed we should be trying to be the best by outdoing the school or country next door.  In today’s world we are starting to realize that in order to become great, we need to collaborate and help each other grow by sharing ideas and challenging mindsets.  Yes, policy changes need to take place but the people that can drive system change are those who work within the system; educators, including everyone that impacts education, can affect change by modeling and sharing great practices.

So, how is social media changing education?  It is not… but the people using it to continually connect are directly and indirectly affecting those ‘around’ them and thus, changing what we call education.

 Thank you to George for the chats that have inspired this post.  Just realized that George has already written on this topic so have added it here.

LISTEN. CC photo from http://flic.kr/p/8wdXrR

At Kent School we meet with a few different parent groups throughout the year and always get helpful feedback on how we can improve things at for our students.

Today we had a First Nation Honouring Ceremony for our kindergarten and grade 1 students so prior to this event, we invited the parents to come in an hour early to discuss education at Kent School (we have created a few First Nation Parent Groups based on previous feedback from parents).  We were thrilled to have over half of our students’ parents come in early.

We started the discussion with examples of how most parents ARE already involved in their child’s education and how some are engaged as well as explaining the difference between involvement and engagement.  I then demonstrated all the ways that families can use technology to become either more informed or more engaged with the school.

As with most meetings, I feel the most important part is the dialogue.  I spoke about how, although I believe school-family communication is very important to student learning, this cannot be done effectively without trust.  We wanted to hear from the parents about how the school can work to build trust in families so they not only feel comfortable coming to the school but also confident that they can speak about their child and feel they have been heard.

After some table talk, we asked the parents to share their thoughts.

• A father spoke up first and said, “it’s simple… the only thing I ask is that when I discuss my child, LISTEN.  I have been part of schools that have constantly told me what to do but never listened to what I had to say.” [in my opinion, in addition to listening I think we (as educators) need to seek out voices of those who generally do not speak up]
• A mother spoke up and said, “We know what our child cannot do, we want to hear HOW he is learning and what he CAN do – we appreciate when schools do this on phone calls, meetings, report cards… kids also need to hear this – that they have strengths and areas they need to work on”.
• A mother stated, “If the school has to tell us something concerning, it is much easier to hear when it is sandwiched between some positives.”
• A mother discussed how her work affects her involvement, “I feel so disconnected with the school because I work.  I know teachers work all day so I don’t want to bother them in the evening.  I like the idea of having other ways to communicate with teachers so we do not interrupt their time away from school… this would really help me. That way, I can stay connected to my daughter’s school better at times that work for me and the teacher.  I WANT to be connected in person, but working full time makes it tough.”
• A group of parents said the like receiving the positive phone calls and comments (see post about Friday 5 Positive phone calls)  so they know that just because the school number comes up on the call display, it does not mean it is a bad thing.

There are so many reasons why some parents do not feel they have a relationship with their child’s school.  Policies and directives cannot build trust with parents; however, relationships can.  This is where we need to start.  Build relationships by LISTENING to parents and ENGAGING in dialogue around their child’s learning.

Too often, the education system tells parents what to do or makes judgmental statements that further disengage parents.  We all know that working WITH parents to increase involvement enhances learning in children.  A few parents and families from Kent School have spoken up and provided feedback on how to build trust…

Are we listening? 

Thank you so much to the families that provided feedback; also thank you to our passionate First Nation Support Workers who continue to work so hard in helping our school build relationships with our families.

Some of the many ways to connect with families.

At Kent we provide many opportunities for parents and families to stay informed and involved in their child’s education.  Nothing is better than face to face communication but many times this is not possible so I believe it is important to provide a variety of ways that parents and families can both receive information and engage in dialogue with the school using technology.

As I have described in the post “Parent Communication: TO vs WITH”, schools need to use technology to not only provide information TO parents but to also engage in conversations WITH parents around student learning.  Social media, in which parents can leave comments and questions, can be a great tool for this.

Below is a list of the many ways that we use technology at Kent School to try to engage and involve parents by meeting them where they are.  Following the list is a screencast of the many ways that parents can use our blog as a starting point to access the many ways to stay (or become more) informed and/or engaged.

PARENT INFORMATION AND DIALOGUE

• Parent Info For Kent Elementary Facebook Page - many parents are already on Facebook so we need to ‘meet’ them there. For my belief on why “Your School Needs a Facebook Page” click here.
• Good Things At Kent Blog – this is our school blog in which we share all the events and day-to-day occurrences at Kent School.  For the past 3 years we have done a “10 Good Things To Talk About” each Friday (thank you to Yrsa Jensen, SD36 for the idea) and this year we have moved this to a blog format so parents can access this through their mobile devices and also provide feedback through comments.
• Email – the majority of our parents receive email of any information but many still like to receive the paper version too.  Parents can opt out of receiving paper format here.  Teachers also use email to keep parents informed of student learning.
• Twitter – our school is on Twitter (@kentelemschool) and the same info that is on Facebook is on Twitter but it is just another way to receive the info or engage in dialogue with the school.  Some of our teachers are also now on Twitter. NOTE:  When something is posted on the blog, it automatically goes to our Facebook Page which is automatically linked to our Twitter account (so there is not much more work in having the same information available through a variety of means).
• Text Messages (SMS) – our school provides the option for families to stay informed of important events via text messaging (Remind101).  This is not a way to engage in dialogue but only a way for parents to receive info.
• School Website – a teacher and his students run the school website.  It is used for coding and problem-solving with the kids and as a way for teachers to showcase student projects and provide info on what is happening in their classes.  NOTE: The Fraser-Cascade School District is moving to a more user-friendly, standardized format for school websites/teacher blogs so stay tuned.
• Library and Principal Blog – our teacher-librarian hosts her own blog here that describes all the learning that happens through our school library.  She also uses it as a way to promote community and family literacy.  I also encourage parents to subscribe and comment on my blogs around my philosophies of education.
• Contact the principal – my cell phone is available for parents to use to contact me via calls or text messaging.  (Thanks to Chris Kennedy and Darcy Mullin for the encouragement). I am also available through email, my direct line, and Skype (for those parents who prefer “face to face” but are unable to come to the school.

OTHER USES OF TECHNOLOGY SHARED WITH FAMILIES

• Student Blogs – our intermediate teachers use KidBlogs to encourage connected learning with their students.  Parents will be able to read and comment on their child’s blogs.
• Animoto - each month, a video compilation of students is created, shown to the students, and sent to parents.  Click here for an example.  Students also create videos of field trips, etc using this program.
• Flickr - photos of students and events are uploaded to Flickr and available to parents.
• YouTube – messages and videos of students at Kent showcased here – often using a private link.
• Google Docs – used for collaboration with students, staff, and parents
• Google Calendar – school calendar is updated and posted.  My calendar is available online and posted outside my office.

Here is the screencast I posted on our school blog on how parents can access the aforementioned tools to stay involved and/or engaged with Kent School (sorry for the monotone but my wife kept signalling me to keep my voice low as we had 2 sleeping babies )

Nothing is better than face-to-face communication so families are always encouraged to meet with their child’s teachers.  If this is not possible, or preferred, technology can be a great option for families to connect with their child’s school.  We are continuing to learn in this area so if you have any other recommendations or comments, please share them below.

The Whittle-Putt Family with students from Kent

I do not normally blog from school but I just had one of the most emotional and inspiring moments of my life.  Twenty minutes ago I met Lilee Whittle-Putt and her family.  Lilee’s first birthday is on December 5.  My daughters’ first birthday is on December 10th.  As we plan on having some family and close friends share Ellexis and and Ella’s first birthday, Lilee’s family prepares to head back to Vancouver Children’s Hospital.

Lilee is recovering from brain surgery and her first round of chemotherapy to help her to defeat a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma (GBM).  When you see Lilee, she just looks and acts like any typical 11 month-old; she reminds me so much of my daughter Ella – not a whole lot of hair and a smile and giggle that will make you melt.

Lilee is home from the hospital for a few days, in between rounds of chemo, so she and her family were here to personally thank three of our students for leading up a fundraiser in which they raised almost $700 in just two days.  I am so proud of these students (in grades 2 and 5) for doing something for all the right reasons.  I am so proud of the small community of Agassiz for coming together and helping a family in need.  I have lived in both small communities and larger cities and nothing compares to the power that results when a community surrounds a child and family with support and love.

Meeting Lilee was very difficult for me as all I could picture was my family going through this.  The Whittle-Putts seems so strong… and this strength must come from the strength within a beautiful child.  Meeting Lilee makes it clear of what truly matters.

Thank you, Lilee, Andrew (father), Chelsea (mother) and Ron (grandfather), for showing me what is the only thing that is important in life – love.   Thank  you for showing me the importance of family, friends and a caring community. Thank you for inspiring me to see that NOTHING is more important to me than the love of my family.  Hug your kids as soon as you can.  Stop and enjoy the many moments.

I am in awe of how the courage of a child can inspire an entire community.  I look forward to seeing Lilee and the Whittle-Putt family next month; with the strength in her heart I know she will continue to defeat this horrible disease and inspire all of us.

Lilee checks out her card from the community of Kent School.

Please support the family by going to their website, Love For Lilee, and liking their Facebook Page.

For a post by my previous principal, Roxanne Watson, on how students can make such a huge difference (including more stories about Lilee’s fight), please click here.

Thank you to Natalie Bolan for initially sharing Lilee’s story with me and introducing me to the Whittle-Putt family.

It is no secret that an area of education in which I am passionate is assessment – in particular Assessment For Learning or Formative Assessment.  The work of Dylan Williams, Ruth Sutton, Rick Stiggins, John Hattie, Ken O’Connor and Anne Davies have had a significant impact on my thoughts around assessment but since last year, I have had the opportunity to work closely with another local (BC) educator around assessment and grading: Tom Schimmer.

Tom and I met through Twitter and since then, have met face to face as well as over the phone a number of times (see my notes from his presentation here). His mentorship around creating change in schools in the area of assessment will help me for years to come as we move away from the traditional practices to more current ones that benefit student learning. His book “10 Things That Matter From Assessment to Grading” is highly recommended as a practical way to encourage shifts in your classroom and schools.

In our recent #BCEd Chat on Monday November 4, the topic was “the link between assessment and learning”.  It was a great discussion and at the end, I asked “So we all agree that AFL (assessment for learning) is one of the most powerful tools for student learning; why is this practice not in every school and every classroom?”.  HOW can we work to changing the mindset so AFL is the norm in each classroom?

To help me with this question, I have asked Tom to chat with me on Twitter this Thursday, Nov 17 at 4:00 PST (7:00 EST).  The hashtag for the conversation will be #AFLSchim and

I invite you to join us on Thursday to ask Tom, and engage with others, any questions about implementing AFL into your classroom or school.  If you have any questions you would like Tom to focus on, please leave them in the comments below. Here are some that I will be looking to ask:

• In a system in which class sizes are not getting smaller, and money and time is tight, HOW can we implement changes so that AFL becomes more of the norm in BC schools?
• How do we move toward Assessment For Learning in a system that requires grades, percentages, and report cards?

Hope you can join us Thursday at 4:00pm PST! #AFLSchim

Tom will also be joining us at Edcamp Fraser Valley on December 3 in Maple Ridge.  Hope you can join us there to continue the dialogue around topics including assessment and grading.  www.edcampfv.ca

CC Image from Beatnic http://bit.ly/uttoUC

I am thrilled to have a former student, Kenny Kou, write a guest post on my blog.  Kenny and I have been conversing (and challenging each other’s ideas) for the past few years on the topic of education reform through email while he was enrolled as an math/engineering student at the University of Waterloo.  He has now started a new journey as a grade 5-7 teacher in Nigeria.  He sent me an email about his experience during his first 6 weeks; his narrative demonstrates the importance of working WITH students by building relationships through understanding.

By Kenny Kou

On the first day of one of my creative writing classes, some of my students were acting up, so I asked them to stay behind afterwards. Instead of cussing them out (as was my initial plan), I decided to listen instead. I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, and what they enjoyed about school. One of the students said he wanted to be an engineer. After a few leading questions, he made the connection that to be a successful engineer, he would have to be able to write well. He’d have to be able to articulate his points, and outline his ideas in proposals. Since that class, he’s been very co-operative and friendly.

I’m also teaching Language Arts to a class of five Grade 7 students. All of them are quite energetic, but one of them takes the cake. He is always jumping around, spouting out random comments during the lesson and interrupting both his classmates and me while ignoring instructions. Even when it comes to his writing assignments, you can see the energy flying all over the page as he’ll frequently go from one idea to the next without completing the first thought. One day, I pulled him aside at lunchtime and spoke with him about the upcoming story-writing project. We talked about what he was going to write, and then he gave me a few of his ideas. They were all fantastic ideas, and he could have made a great story out of any of them. But then we talked about how it was important to create structure for his ideas. That he would be able to write a great story once he put his ideas into the framework and combine the structure with his creativity. After that chat, he started to pay much more attention to instructions, as he could finally see the value in them. Although he still gives me trouble occasionally, his behaviour has vastly improved. Some of the other teachers in the school have complained about him being difficult to teach, but he has been a welcome presence in mine.

In my Grade 5 Language Arts class, two of the students have exceptional difficulty reading at grade-level; when they failed to follow along with their classmates, they resorted to misbehaving, which set off a chain reaction of the other boys joining in and goofing off with them. Since the second week, I have had two hours per week of class time with just those two boys to work on their basic language skills. During those sessions, we joke around with one another, talk sports and keep the atmosphere really relaxed; but, we also get through the lessons. We’ll intersperse social and academic, while occasionally blending the two together to make the lesson individualized and relevant to their own interests. Over the past few weeks, they have demonstrated great growth in their comprehension abilities. As a bonus, their behaviour in the class has also substantially improved. Not only are they not acting up in class, they’re preventing their classmates from stepping out of line by calling them out whenever anyone misbehaves.

Only six weeks down, but I’ve learned first-hand so much about the importance of working WITH the students. As opposed to resorting to discipline as a first strike, I’ve been working to understand WHY the students behave the way that they’re behaving. As a teacher, it’s my responsibility to make the lesson meaningful to the students. In order to do that, I have to learn about what is important to them and figure out how to incorporate those values into creating a lesson that they will buy into. Only then will I be able to provide them with the education that they deserve. It’s been a great learning experience so far and it truly has been learning with the students.

Here are more thoughts from Kenny from previous emails…

• The students are able to see me as their ally instead of their boss. It’s allowed them me to connect with them, and improve the overall classroom environment and their attitudes toward learning.
• My next battles: education is not a race and convincing students that learning is more important than grades. Despite my efforts thus far, “Is that an A” is still a very common question and “I’m done” is a very common phrase in my class.

I look forward to hearing more reflections from Kenny during his journey as a new teacher. Thanks for taking the time to share, Mr. Kou!

Last April I attended the best professional learning day of my career: Edcamp Vancouver (for more on my experience as an “edcamper”, please click here).  Following this experience, I knew we had to bring an “unconference” like this to the Fraser Valley so along with some other admin, teachers, and parents, we have organized Edcamp Fraser Valley for Saturday, December 3 at Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge.

So what is Edcamp and why is it such an amazing learning experience? Grant Frend, one of the Edcamp FV organizers, describes it as:

One forum that enables educators [including students, parents, community] to engage in meaningful and relevant professional development is the Edcamp model.  What is Edcamp? Edcamp is organic, democratic, participant driven professional development for educators. There are no keynote presentations, there is no formal pre-set agenda, and participants set the course of the day.

My thoughts on Edcamp:

• flattened hierarchies – voices from ALL people passionate about education can be heard rather than one expert and many listeners
• participant driven – have a topic you want to learn more about – put up an idea and then join up with other interested people
• all about conversation – the “empty vase” model of professional development does not exist at Edcamp -YOU drive the learning!
• relationships – you get to meet new people that share areas of interest AND/OR you get to meet those people whom you have already connected with online
• flexible schedule – the schedule is decided on the day and participants are encouraged to vote with their feet – they can decided to move to a different session at any time
• networking sessions – there is much more time in between sessions to continue the dialogue or meet up with other participants to reflect on the sessions. Click here for the schedule for the day.
• price is right – it is FREE! (unless you want lunch which is $5)

Here are some slides from David Wees (the educator who brought Edcamp to BC last year) that describe the Edcamp Vancouver model:

If you are a ANYBODY (students, parents, community members, trustees, educators, etc) interested in education in the Fraser Valley or beyond, come join us in Maple Ridge on December 3rd!

With the release of the BC Education Plan, this is a great opportunity to share and discuss the future of education in the province.  For more information and to register, please go to the Edcamp Fraser Valley website.  Join people already registered from the Frasey Valley, Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, Okanagan and Washing State!

Also, like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.  For an information sheet to distribute, click here. For more info, please contact me.

For a more in-depth talk on Edcamp, please watch the embedded video from Kristen Swanson: