Grove City College will host an edcamp from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 23, in the Hall of Arts and Letters on campus. The conference centers on learning, innovation and spurring excitement about education.
“Edcamp is an idea developed by educators for educators,” Dr. Samantha Fecich, assistant professor and instructional technologist in the College’s Department of Education, said. “We decided to bring it to Grove City College after attending two edcamps in Pittsburgh last spring and in the fall.”
Edcamp is unique in that it is an “un-conference.” There is no set schedule or any pre-planned sessions. Participants submit ideas for conference topics when they arrive and sessions are built on their ideas. Students and faculty have collaborated to organize the event and provide unique perspectives on education to the discussion.
“It is very participant-driven,” Fecich said. “Our students have amazing gifts and talents, and by being involved in planning and leading this event they have an opportunity to showcase those talents. It was actually our students’ idea to have edcamp come to Grove City College.”
To learn more about the conference or to register, visit http://edcampgcc.weebly.com/. The deadline for registration is Friday, April 15.
Since the original edcamp in Philadelphia in 2010 there have been over 700 conferences around the world in 25 countries. The edcamp movement is a grassroots effort to bring together passionate educators for a day of learning and growth. Each event is independently organized and hosted and free to participants, who leverage social media to involve remote attendees.
By adopting the un-conference protocol inspired by the Barcamp model, edcamps provide access to high quality, personalized professional learning for all educators. Embracing the belief that fellow educators can be some of the most valuable professional development resources for their colleagues, the edcamp movement has been recognized by countless organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education, the Bammy Awards for Education, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the International Society for Technology in Education, the TEDx program and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.