I wanted to reflect on this, but as usual Seth Godin has a post that says it better than I ever could.
“I didn’t have time”
This actually means, “it wasn’t important enough.” It wasn’t a high priority, fun, distracting, profitable or urgent enough to make it to the top of the list.Seth Godin
Last year our Overly Large School District surveyed the staff about leadership, specifically opportunity for leadership in the school you work in.
And looking at the results, I feel stuck by the word leadership. What did people think of when they were filling out that survey? What is leadership?
Writing about what leadership is not, that is easier Leadership is not the ability to tell people what to do. The police office that pulls me over is not leading me. Leadership is not just making a choice, though most leaders are making choices.
But, leadership is such a broad idea, you could write about it and nothing else. So where to start?
A former principal talked about leadership being service and stewardship. Leaders work for a greater purpose, not themselves. They are stewards of the people and resources around them. They show people a better way and help them get there.
Service and stewardship. It is a good place to start.
I went to EdCampNova, which is a UnConference or an Open Space Meeting. Scott Berkun has a better overview (and assortment of how-to links) on UnConferences than I could ever write. This is the second type I’ve attended an UnConference, and the EdCampNova people put on a wonderful event. Keep your eyes open for the spring conference, it is worth your time.
But it’s the format itself that I want to reflect on. The UnConference should be a part of a teacher’s professional development plan, but not exclusively.
It was a wonderful way to brainstorm with peers. My first table talked about Student Tech Teams. None of the ten educators who sat around that team had a Student Tech Team. We shared ideas and brainstormed. I think we all figured out a way forward. Everyone shared their twitter handles so we have a group to be accountable with and share what we had accomplished.
It was also was a wonderful way for a person new to a topic to learn more. My second session was on Makerspaces, a topic I know very little about. It was wonderful to listen and absorb ideas. At EdTechNova they even have virtual group notes in Google Docs, so I walked away with a wonderful set of resources.
I didn’t want to say cons. A boat doesn’t fly, but you would not count that as a negative. That is not what a boat is for. That is why I headed this “The Keep in Minds.” Just things to keep in mind.
The topics are broad, so there seemed to be a lot of general conversations. The Makerspace and Student Tech teams discussions felt like an overview of the topics. Which, as a beginner in those topics, was fantastic. But, for the administrator whose school had a strong makerspace community, he probably did not walk away from that meeting with much.
Maybe if the group was larger (there was maybe 100 people at EdCampNova) you have enough people who could have put on the topic organization board “Advanced MakerSpaces” or “Next Steps in Maker Spaces.” Or maybe you need to have a UnConference specifically targeting MakerSpaces (they exist) to get the group large enough for those to occur naturally.
Second, because each session is put together by the people who show up, there is no moderator or person guiding the discussion. There is a danger in strong personalities hijacking the conversation. Talking to one of the participants, she ended up leaving one of the table for a while because one side of the table kept derailing the conversation away from the topic.
My third concern took a while to put into words. Camp Stomping Ground’s video on Open Space meetings says the benefit is Open Space Meetings gives “an opportunity for each participant to learn exactly what they feel they need.” But, you often do not know what you need.
I went to our Overly Large School System’s web curator conference. I went there wanting to learn more about social media. When I got there half the sessions were on 508 compliance. After the first session, which was required, I realized I needed to spend the rest of the day on 508 compliance. The Unconference/Open Space Meeting format feels focus what you might already have a sense of. If you did not know about it, you would not search for more information on it.
So what are my next steps. I think the UnConference format would be interesting to do at my school. But to get buy in, I feel I need more people to have the experience. I think next step #1 is to get more people to go to the next EdTechNova conference. There are a few people whoI think would be candidates. I’ll have to reach out to them. If more people had experience with the format it would be easier to advocate for it at my school.
I also want to test the idea that topics have to be broad. I am hoping at the Spring EdTechNova to put some follow up topics. If I get my Tech Team Going I’d love to do Tech Team Part II at the conference to see if you can have a more detailed discussion.
Finally, I need to learn more about these conferences in general. I volunteered to help at the next EdTechNova and I’ll start reading more about them online.
Notes For Kevin 