Hack+Your+Education+Planning

December 7 - 8: Phoenix, AZ


Home Page: http://www.hackyoureducation.com/

Your Education Revolution Workshop (Friday evening): http://www.hackyoureducation.com/your-education-revolution.html

Bootcamp 2.0: Take Charge of Your Own Learning (Saturday): http://www.hackyoureducation.com/bootcamp-20.html

Schedule for all Hack Your Education locations: http://www.hackyoureducation.com/schedule.html

Wiki page for us to personalize the schedule for our workshop: https://aztea.wikispaces.com/Hack+Your+Education+Workshop+Schedule

Sign Up/RSVP Survey created for SLA Workshops in Philadelphia, PA (Nov. 9-10)

More About Sponsors for the Tour: http://www.hackyoureducation.com/more-about-sponsors.html

Sample online announcement created for SLA: http://www.smore.com/1y70

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Local Notes from previous locations: Redwood City Portland Seattle

Help Needed: Description of materials and space needed for the hosting location: http://www.hackyoureducation.com/help-needed.html

Peggy George: pgeorge@mac.com Sandy Luedke: Sandy.Luedke@dvusd.org Laura Sheehy: lsheehy7@gmail.com Kathy Cook: kathy.cook@phoenix.edu Steve Hargadon: hargadon@gmail.com
 * Our planning team information (feel free to invite others to join us) **
 * All meetings held in the AzTEA Blackboard Collaborate webinar room: http://tinyurl.com/aztea-pd **

Phoenix RSVP Google Form: http://www.smore.com/b5ck-hack-your-education-tour Our Google spreadsheet of registered participants for both Friday and Saturday, Dec. 7-8 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoTZYdaqJaiMdEtWTWNRWEljZS1aNjUyc3FFTlU2bGc#gid=0

= I'll add the recording link and notes below with the most current on top. =

NOTES from meeting compiled by Peggy from the recording 10/30/12:
https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/nativeplayback.jnlp?sid=vclass&psid=2012-10-30.1345.D.AC392E6A5156797E29CE85683F65F4.vcr Notes and recording link for brainstorming meeting on Monday Oct. 30, 2012 (1:00-1:50pm) (Participants: Peggy George, Sandy Luedke, Laura Sheehy, Kathy Cook)

Next Meeting (#3): Peggy, Laura, Sandy, Kathy 10:00-11:00am Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012 Blackboard Collaborate: http://tinyurl.com/aztea-pd

Report back on progress we are making on several tasks:

Kathy is developing a proposal to request space in the John Sperling Center for both Fri. & Sat. events and possibly include snacks and breakfast. Will try to have a decision by this meeting. Space would be free of charge if proposal is accepted.

All will review the planning wikis and add questions/comments/ideas color coding our responses for followup.

Peggy will contact Kim Flack about possibly promoting the event through an email blast from ASSET.

All will review the Smore template for the electronic flyer and begin to wordsmith it to make sure purpose is clear and message is inviting to all possible stakeholders. Once finalized create PDF so flyer can be downloaded and printed to distribute widely.

Consider other groups that might be able to help us promote the event through email blasts such as ADE, Maricopa County, AzTEA, Joint Board--AATM, ASTA, AzTEA, AZK12 Center, distribute flyers at Mega Conference on Nov. 14-16 which reaches educators, administrators, community, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, District email lists, etc.

NOTES from meeting compiled by Peggy from the recording 10/15/12:
https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/nativeplayback.jnlp?sid=vclass&psid=2012-10-15.1344.D.AC392E6A5156797E29CE85683F65F4.vcr Notes and recording link for brainstorming meeting on Monday Oct. 15, 2012 (12:30-1:30pm) (Participants: Peggy George, Sandy Luedke, Laura Sheehy)

Sandy-we have the room/space at Deer Valley if we want it. We would like to have both Fri. & Sat. in same location. Computer lab room. 36 computers (recessed) with presenter stand up front. Can be mic'ed. great for presentations on Sat. but can't be rearranged for more informal groups. People can cluster together around a computer if they need to but if the focus is on the conversation and no technology on Friday night that room isn't best for this. Has a board room reserved but not same location. 15th Ave & 101, Board room could be small groups but no Smartboard There is a smaller room with long tables but not very conducive to conversations either. Could just take chairs and move them around.

Audience?? Best ways to reach them?

home school parents? not best audience because they have already taken charge of their own learning and have very strong opinions about home schooling as the ideal alternative.

Julia Howe? wondered if she was a person of interest that we should be reaching out to? President-Elect for AzTEA Board. Lives in Yuma so she knew she couldn't host it (out of the valley) but willing to support. If state-wide opportunity how might we be able to reach the rural folks too?

Alternative Schools? Not just those designed to handle kids who have emotional needs and can't be served in regular schools/classrooms but they are often very vocal groups who may be unsatisfied with how their child's needs are being met. (special ed kids)

Laura-people we would hope to reach may not be on any regular email lists and harder to reach

What are we learning from Steve's experiences so far? Will the audience be primarily educators or can we hope to get parents and possibly students involved in the conversation?

Always parents who are dissatisfied with how their kids' needs are being met? Gifted, special ed., behavioral issues, those who leave to go to charter schools, etc.

Laura: wonder if we contact the county offices to see if they have a way to reach parents who aren't involved in public schools?

Peggy: is there a way to reach them without singling groups of people out--more open mailing to educators who can reach out to parents/patrons personally in their own schools/districts?

Sandy: children in poverty situations? Ruby Payne how do we reach them? Language barriers and how to deal with Non-English speakers. Can we handle this?

Peggy: so impressed with Jamie Vollmer's interview with Steve and his message about involving the community (Schools Can't Do it Alone) Would that kind of focus help people to leave with an idea/plan for starting some focus groups in own communities to continue the conversations? What about the teachers who don't feel they have the time to get involved in something like this? It's not the teachers' faults--it's a system problem.

Sandy mentioned to her group of instructional coaches and some interest there. Consider things like are we moving in the right direction--based in Title I schools and see the impact of teachers not being willing to do what is needed to reach them. Their input would be so valuable.

Peggy: probably more educators than parents especially if hosted in a school setting--may feel intimidated.

Sandy: my 3 questions: how will we promote this? think we need some kind of RSVP system to know how many people might be coming. Supplies?

what about the ASSET mailing list that reaches educators around the state? they all know 1-2 people they could personally invite through their networking. If they bring them to the meeting they're more likely to come. Tendency is to not want to travel any distance--mainly people who live near by tend to participate. Probably won't get people from norther or southern AZ.

Laura: aren't we trying to keep the group smaller (not 200 people). Peggy: think Steve was saying it doesn't matter how small the group is--even 15-20 is ok. Friday would be harder to have a large group for conversations than the Sat. format where there will be presentations and conversations.

Need a survey/RSVP to find out who might be coming and what they might like to discuss? Peggy: Could do this in a google form and embed it wherever we want it. Maybe it could be added to his Hack Your Education tour site? Peggy: Steve doesn't really want to be the chief planner--he wants each area to take charge of that.

Would like to see how the other groups advertised their events? Find out who the organizers were for each of them and try to contact them for links to their sites/resources.

Sandy: Teachers can bring parents from their school. Not really comfortable with the term of Hack Your Education and sending out the message that public schools aren't doing their jobs. We need to be careful how it's promoted so we're not stirring the pot in a negative way.

Everything that goes out from Sandy's department can only go out once a week and in a certain form. Will have to wordsmith this a bit before putting it out--tends to come across as anti-public school. OK with the title but want to describe it slightly differently to soften it a bit. (Hump Day Happenings)

Peggy: Focus on building the personal learning network and learning how to learn in their own situations as parents who help their kids learn this.

Sandy: Still have some time. Would like to know who the organizers are in Boston and NY to be able to contact them since they are coming up. ( UPDATE: NY was cancelled and Boston likely to be cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy)

Peggy: Create a wiki or google doc as a place to do the planning so we can get more people involved in the process. Peggy volunteered to create the wiki if we don't have a template or example from the others that we can use to jumpstart it. Peggy try to get these created before our next meeting on Oct. 30th.

Peggy: Steve wants it to be more than presentations--interactive and concrete with people leaving with a plan of action. How do we organize the groups so it's not just parents talking to parents, teachers talking to teachers, etc. We can ask their role on the RSVP so we'll have a better idea of the audience and use that to plan ways to organize the groups. Can this all be in the RSVP document or should it be 2 separate documents? Would be very helpful to have administrators in this conversation and also reps from the parent organizations (PTA/PTO). Is there a local group that could disseminate this information to parents? AZ PTA? (Laura said they have a website). PTSA? School Site Councils with parent reps? If we're more clear about what we want to have happen it will be easier to figure out how to target the population to get the word out.

Sandy: shouldn't we just use his verbiage on the website to get the word out? Peggy: lot of words there that represent a "philosophy" that may not be easy to understand by non-educators. Help them understand the purpose and why they might want to come. When we talk about 21st century learners they need to be self-directed learners who are able to take charge of their own learning. That could be the primary purpose. Most parents want their kids to be able to do this.

Peggy: Fri night may be the emotional/inspirational time that gets people excited about coming back the next day to continue the conversation.

Sandy: don't want to include the verbiage about teachers telling kids they are failures.

Who are our other contacts from other districts? AzTEA members? No problem reaching the board members.

Most concerned about getting a clear focus (infographic?? poster??) so we can communicate that clearly in the announcement and something that they will want to follow up on and join in the conversation.

Send it out to the educators and ask them to "Each One Bring One"

Meet again in 2 weeks? October 30th, 1:00-2:00pm in AzTEA's Blackboard Collaborate room.


 * Email from Kathy Cook (Oct. 26) New planning team member :-) Welcome Kathy! We're so glad you're here! **

I would like to see if we can host both the Friday night event and the Saturday event at the John Sperling Center of Educational Innovation/Phoenix Campus. The building is centrally located just south of the airport and off the I-10 Broadway curve, across the freeway from the Los Angeles Angels’ spring-training park in Tempe. The building has a “Classroom without Boundaries” that features state-of-the-art instructional technology. If it sounds like a venue that the group would be interested in pursuing, I will do what I can on this side to secure the location.

John Sperling Center for Educational Innovation http://www.phoenix.edu/forward/community/2012/06/new-sperling-center-officially-opens.html http://www.phoenix.edu/forward/community/2012/05/phoenix-rising-this-unique-college-campus-hosts-its-grand-opening-may-24.html

Classroom Without Boundaries




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