This week we talked abit about the importance of properly curating and organizing our collected resources. After that we broke into a a type of user generated conference (or unconference) that we called EdCamp. Sadly there were no marshmellows to roast, apparently stating campfires in the classroom is some sort of “safety hazard.”
On the topic of digital curation we discussed the importance of always having access to the source file. It is painful to know exactly what you want but be unable to find it anymore. It is also important to consider how you store your files, are you using an organized system that makes everything searchable. Another consideration is cloud storage, if a laptop gets stolen or damaged, you don’t want to lose all your data along with it.
After that discussion we moved on to EdCamp. It was certainly a fun and interesting way to do group discussions. There was no prechosen topic for us, instead everyone could propose a topic by writing in down and taping it to the wall. Then everyone got three votes in the form of stickers that they could distribute however they saw fit. The top ideas are the ones that groups formed around, and the idea was that at any time you could get up and swap to another group.
The group I ended up with discussed at length why student presentations are bad and how to help improve them. The process as a whole was very fun, from the voting to the discussions. One issue that I noticed however, was that there was very little switching of groups. I think this was due to some questions being a little to constrained, such as the group I was apart of. It was difficult for new people to join our group when we were already pretty far into a list of solutions. All in all, it was a great experience, and definitely something I want to try out again in the future. Though next time, a good camp needs marshmellows.