Category: news

PLAYDATE OKC 2014: Saturday May 10th

You are formally invited to register and attend PLAYDATE OKC, coming to John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City on Saturday, May 10th from 6 pm to 10 pm. No presenters. No agendas. Just playing. That’s right, a FREE night of tinkering with apps, playing with technology tools, and collaborating with other innovative educators in and near Oklahoma City! More information is available on playdate.edcampOKC.org, including registration via EventBrite. Please help us spread the word! A PDF marketing flyer is available you can print and share!

playdate-flyer

Find out if PLAYDATE is a good for your professional development by watching the 52 second video, “Is PLAYDATE Right For You?”

More information is available about the “backstory” of PLAYDATE OKC 2014! We’d love for you to join our volunteer organizer team!

Why EdCamp? A Crowdsourced Video Project

Did you attend EdCampOKC 2014? Have you attended EdCamp somewhere else? We want to know YOUR answer to the question: WHY EDCAMP?

One of our EdCampOKC 2014 organizers, Anne Beck, has agreed to put together these videos into a longer video we can share in advance of EdCampTulsa on Saturday, March 29, 2014, in Jenks. Here’s what we need you to do to help out!

  1. Record a 15 – 30 second video of yourself answering the question, “Why EdCamp?”
  2. Upload your video to a cloud storage site like DropBox or Google Drive. Set the sharing to public and copy the link to the video file.
  3. Email THE LINK to your video file to annebeck2586 [at] gmail [dot] com by midnight on Sunday, March 9, 2014.

Be sure you agree to our licensing terms: We’ll be sharing your video (along with others) on YouTube under a Creative Commons Attribution-Only License.

If you have questions about this project or run into trouble, send a tweet to Anne @MrsBeck25. She’ll share the compiled/composite video of submissions soon afterward, most likely by the end of next week so we can use it to help build more interest in EdCampTulsa!

Also, if you haven’t already, please register to attend EdCampTulsa on Saturday, March 29, 2014, in Jenks. Registration is FREE and available via EventBrite. There are 132 registered as of today, and the facility capacity is just 200, so you need to register soon. This may be our first EdCamp event in Oklahoma to sell out! 🙂

EdCampOKC 2014 Marketing Flyer

Thanks to Luke Steelman, a PDF marketing flyer for EdCampOKC 2014 is now available! Please share this link, forward this PDF to educators you know, and post printed copies in locations other educators will see who might be interested in attending on Saturday, February 15 , 2014 at Grant High School in Oklahoma City! Registration for this FREE day of “unconference” professional development is available now via EventBrite. Please help us spread the word about EdCampOKC 2014!

edcampokc_2014_flyer

Updates Prior to Saturday

Organizers emailed out this information to all registered attendees of EdCampOKC tonight!

Our first EdCampOKC is almost here! We’re planning to see you at Yukon High School on Saturday morning for a GREAT day of “unconference” professional development. Here are a few updates:

  1. FOOD: We will have a GREAT vendor-provided, free breakfast from Chick-fil-A on Saturday morning! Lunch will not be provided, however… we will be on our own for lunch eats.
  2. SCHEDULE: Check out our schedule online. Definitely plan to arrive by 8:30 so you can help build our schedule by suggesting sessions, voting for sessions, and (if you want) volunteering to facilitate sessions! We’ll update this online schedule during the day will info about all scheduled sessions.
  3. PARKING: Lots of parking is available in front and behind Yukon High School. We’ll have doors open by 7:45, but registration will officially begin at 8 am.
  4. DEVICES: Definitely plan to bring mobile devices to take notes, photos, tweet, etc. The YPS wireless guest network is open and just requires an email addresss to gain access, you won’t need a password or special access procedure. Remember to CHARGE your device fully Friday night and bring a power cable just in case!
  5. REGISTRATION STILL OPEN: As of tonight we have 79 people registered, but we have room for lots more! We’ve ordered Chick-fil-A breakfast goodies for 100, so we’d love to see at least 20 more people register and attend if possible. Please continue to spread the word and personally invite other educators you know to attend EdCampOKC!
  6. MEET THE EDCAMPERS: The last week or so we’ve been featuring short posts on our blog & twitter about US: The EdCampers! Check out these posts to get to know some of our attendees in advance, and (if you haven’t already) submit our “Meet the EdCampers Contribution Form” so we can feature YOU too!
  7. LIVESTREAM: We will be livestreaming (webcasting) the sessions in “the red room” during EdCampOKC as well as our after-lunch “app smackdown” in the Black Box Theater of YHS. If for some reason you can’t attend, check out our livestream, and definitely share this with others via email and Twitter! This is (of course) a free and open livestream that anyone worldwide can watch.
  8. TWITTER: If you’re on Twitter, please share before, during and after our Saturday event using the hashtag #edcampOKC. If you’re not on Twitter, EdCamp will provide a great opportunity to learn about it and how to use it from other attendees.
  9. AFTER-PARTY: Tomorrow night during our last EdCampOKC Organizer’s meeting we’ll finalize the selection of our after-party location in Yukon. If you have ideas and want to share input, please let an organizer know tomorrow! We hope you’ll plan to continue the great conversations at the after-party too.
  10. SWAG & SPONSORS: Our organizers have worked with some great sponsors to obtain a variety of giveaways and swag for our event. Please take some time to thank our sponsors when you see them at EdCampOKC, and also consider sending some tweets (listed on our sponsor page) to these folks to publicly show your appreciation for their support that’s making this event possible.
  11. CERTIFICATES: Attendance certificates will be provided as downloadable/printable PDFs following EdCampOKC, which you can use for local PD credit. Be sure to check in at registration in the morning so organizers will know to send you your certificate!
  12. PRINTED TICKETS: If possible, please bring your printed Eventbrite ticket (attached to this email & sent with your initial registration confirmation) with your QR code to the event. Our organizers will scan you in with the free Eventbrite Entry Manager app. If you don’t have your ticket we’ll still let you in and check you “old school” style with paper/pencil. 🙂
If you have a question not answered here, please post it to our idea board or get in touch with an organizer.

Share EdCampOKC on Feb 23rd via Email!

We need your help getting the word out about EdCampOKC on February 23rd! We’re now 18 days out, and we have about 50 people registered – We’ve got room for 250 more! This is a fantastic professional development opportunity in the Oklahoma City area, and it’s 100% FREE for attendees! Our first EdCampOKC will be held at Yukon High School.

Here is the slightly modified text of an email EdCampOKC organizer Tammy Parks shared recently with our Oklahoma TechDirectors Listserv members. Please copy and paste this email and send it to other teachers in Oklahoma you know, as well as those in surrounding states (especially southern Kansas and north Texas.) You can download the EdCampOKC flyer in PDF format and press release PDF to attach them directly to your email message.

Personal invitations to EdCamp are very important! Please consider sending several this week to educators you know.

I am writing to share an upcoming opportunity for a FREE education “unconference” scheduled for February 23rd at Yukon High School.  EdCamps are free, democratic, participant-driven professional development conferences for K-12 educators worldwide. Attached is an EdCampOKC flyer and press release.  If you have any questions about the conference, feel free to contact any of the organizers listed on www.edcampokc.org/organizers.  If you are not familiar with the EdCamp model, you may want to check out this short video for more information.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr7teMAk-hA   I also recommend this EdCamp TED Talk (16 mins) by Kristen Swanson, one of the founders of EdCamp. http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxPhiladelphiaED-Kristen-Swan
Please help spread the word to the education stakeholders in your schools and communities.  You can also follow @EdCampOKC or #EdCampOKC on Twitter for the latest information.  Registration and more information about the conference are available on www.EdCampOKC.org. I hope to see you there!
edcampokc_flyer-450

EdCampOKC 2013 Marketing Flyer

Many thanks to Luke Steelman who, working with Ami Steelman, created a wonderful marketing flyer for EdCampOKC! The conference is coming up fast on Saturday, February 23, 2013. The flyer is available in PDF format. Please forward, print, and distribute this flyer by all means possible to educators you know who might be interested in attending and participating in our first Oklahoma EdCamp! Also please refer people to our official EdCampOKC press release for more information.

edcampokc_flyer-450