Saturday saw the inaugural #EduCampWelly, an unconference for Wellington educators to exchange ideas, share learning and pursue their passions for all things ‘e-learning’.
Highlights of the day for me were (not necessarily in this order):
- The never-ending supply of coffee (thanks, @timoslimo and Emporio. Btw, they are not funding this blog;-)
- The wonderful mix of primary AND secondary AND students ANDS the MoE (how often does that happen? Not as often as it should.) People drove down from Hamilton, and flew from Auckland and Nelson. Now that‘s dedication.
- The success of the format – everyone driving their own agendas, with plenty of variety but also key themes – such as, digital citizenship – that pulled people together
- The laughs, the rich and varied suggestions (the classroom with the five IWBs…!) from the Smackdown session, via Wallwisher, ably pulled together by @fionagrant and @dragonsinger57.
- The light, airy venue of Wellington College library, and the unstinting support of the staff at the school.
I talked with other teachers about social media, web 2.0., digital citizenship, the Virtual Learning Network, iPhone apps, cloud-based learning, Hamlet on Twitter, social networking, networked schools, QR Codes (great idea from @widged)….and all in our own time, under our own steam, powered by our own needs.
The only downside was that I missed sessions that I wanted to see, such as a primary student talking about Scratch, and @lenva discussing Hapara. A nice problem to have, though.
Thanks to everyone who participated with such enthusiasm. Good luck to the other NZ EduCamps this year. Bring on 2012.
karen spencer 
Hi Karen, Great to hear that educampwelly was such a resounding success. I so wish Claire and I had made it up for it…. I have just signed up for educamp Tai Tokerau…. and Claire and I are very excited about Dunedin giving it a go too. Great to see educampdunners making it as an event on the VLN – thanks if that was you!!
Anne K
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