Thursday, June 26, 2014

Reflections on #FlipCon14

It began with my first Voxer conversation a few days before FlipCon14.  Chris Crouch and I connected using Voxer, looking for a way to share our upcoming conference experiences.  I was headed to FlipCon, the annual conference for educators involved with flipped learning, and he was going to be traveling to Atlanta for the annual ISTE conference. Both of us agreed to share the cool tools we learned about at our conferences, but by the first morning of FlipCon, we hadn't quite figured out the best way to do that.  Not long after I picked up my nametag and sat down with a cup of coffee in Mars, Pennsylvania, eagerly waiting for the opening keynote address by Molly Schroeder, I heard the now familiar chirp of a Vox alert.  Chris wondered if he might use Voxer to "sit in" on FlipCon. I wasn't quite sure how to do that without running through my phone battery quickly, but I had another idea.  What about a collaborative Google Doc of session notes?  And rather than just me sharing my notes from each session, I asked the community of educators attending FlipCon14 both in person and virtually to help me.  I tweeted out a link to my open Google doc, requesting help building a  collaborative session notes for the presentations given at the conference.  What I didn't expect was just how many people were interested in helping build our digital conference resource.


ELA Flippers - Cheryl Morris, Andrew Thomasson, Kate Baker, Beth Oing, and others
Over the course of my two days at FlipCon14, I had people both in person and virtually sharing ideas, links, and presentation resources via our open document.  By the close of the conference yesterday, the Google doc, which got its start just a few minutes before Molly took the stage on Tuesday, was already over 35 pages long. It continues to be a living document, filled with session links, quotes from presenters, photos, and tools of all sorts. And in a way, we used this collaborative document to flip our Flipped Learning conference.  Teachers from all disciplines and levels, from a variety of education backgrounds, connected to explore ideas, share with one another, and build our own resource for learning. We took ownership of our learning experiences, shared new knowledge, and applied it to our collaborative space.  And these are the ideals of flipped learning.

Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams sharing stories
Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann, founders of FlipCon, share in the new book Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement that flipped learning transforms the learning space into one that is student-centered, with learners using face-to-face class time to engage in creative and critical thinking.  "Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach..." Sams and Bergmann write, that transforms the classroom into a "dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter" (6).  So it was powerful experience for me as an educator to also be emersed in that dynamic environment at FlipCon.  Throughout the two days of FlipCon14, participants were encouraged to connect, collaborate, and create.  This was not your sit-and-get type of conference.  I walked away from FlipCon not only with a some new tools (and a couple new books!) but with many new connections and the start of a number of new classroom collaborations for this coming fall. FlipCon was just the beginnning, and much like I hope my students do, I walk away from the experience with more questions than answers and excitement about where those questions will lead me.  

Jason Bretzmann leads a fantastic panel discussion
FlipCon14 = Selfie Bingo. Here's a selfie with Kate Baker

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