The EdCamp Santa Maria education conference will be held at Righetti High School on Saturday, April 23. The conference structure is informal, with attendees determining the content of the sessions, based on the interests and needs of participants.
The conference will be free from corporate vendors and booths, with the focus solely on conversations about education. Attendees will come from all over the Santa Maria Valley as well from Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. At EdCamp Santa Maria 2015 participants came from as far as Ventura County and Kern County to attend. All educators are invited—from classroom teachers and administrators, to coaches and school board members. There will be time for attendees to gather informally to share ideas, as well as a variety of sessions for them to attend, which are run by colleagues and fellow educators.
This event is based on the Edcamp model, also known as an unconference. An unconference is: an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment; and a conversational event featuring discussions, demos, and interactions between participants, rather than a group of people listening to a particular speaker.
The organizers of EdCamp Santa Maria are members of the Santa Barbara county affiliate of CUE, a nonprofit organization, and have been working toward the goal of increasing the networking and collaboration opportunities for local educators. After participating in other events and having attended edcamps previously, the organizers fell in love with the model and its potential for teacher professional development. This is the second annual EdCamp Santa Maria after a successful first experience in 2015 with many return attendees expected.
As with all Edcamps, EdCamp Santa Maria is completely free. There are sponsors from education related businesses as well as local businesses and organizations like Lesson Planet and the Santa Maria Breakfast Rotary Club. Morning refreshments will be available, and lunch will be available for purchase on site, however other amenities are provided solely through sponsorship. More information is available on the website edcampsm.blogspot.com.
This article appears in Mar 24-31, 2016.
