Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in the Edcamp43.  The process of this un-conference is one that we would very much like to try with students.  I have been trying to think of a time when we could bring students from across the district together to organize, host and participate in this kind of dialogue.  While the logistics and possibilities percolate, we are going to incorporate it into our classes.

Two ways we have thought to use this process are for assessment and for designing our curriculum for next year.  In a previous post, I disucssed how we brainstormed and came up with the topics of inquiry and themes for the past 2 years.  This year we are going to try having kids post the topics they are interested in discussing on the wall on post-it notes, then clustering the most common topics (or themes that become apparent) and having discussions groups (facilitated by students) with a recorder taking notes onto a google.doc. 

Once we have the themes and topics fleshed out, we’ll faciliate the students in a discussion to look for places where there are curriculum connections. 

Hopefully after experiencing the process, our students will be able to envision and want to host a larger gathering for students and if not we’ll continue to dream about the possibilities.