If We Build It

Top: Christine Miles, Kim Sivick, Dan Callahan
Middle: Mike Ritzius, Hadley Ferguson, Ann Leaness, Kristen Swanson
Bottom: Nicolae Borota, Mary Beth Hertz, Kevin Jarrett, Robert Rowe

As of Saturday, these folks are my new heroes. They are the people who took Saturday's EdCamp Philly from "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." to "Let's do it!"

This group picture, organizer & presenter Dan Callahan reports, was taken early in the morning, just before the event got started. My guess had been that it was an end-of-event photo, because they certainly would have had a lot to smile about at that point.

I think it's telling that they were this happy just IMAGINING the day that was about to unfold.

EdCamp Philly was, by all accounts, a smash success. Conceived & designed as an unconference, it brought together 200+ edu-enthusiasts who shared and learned together on their own terms in the space and with the support that the organizing team had put in place.

The schedule (as it was created on the spot!) is here: http://bit.ly/edcampphlsched

The organizers' "how to" wiki is here (there's already talk of EdCamps springing up in NYC & FL): http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/

If you want to toss a little rocket-fuel into your Twitter tank, you would do well to starting with these organizers (listed beneath the photo above) and presenters, whose twitter handles are listed in this post.

I'll try to post later today on some of my gleanings from individual sessions, but in the meantime, here's what my brand-new-to-unconferences-and-happily-tagging-along friend KD had to say about the day:

"The energy was just so positive and inviting. There was no sense of anyone being better than anyone else... everyone was just there to learn and support."

Here was someone else's "take" as reported on Twitter:

Colleague just said in discussing #edcamp with her "so it was an unstructured, unconference that was unbelievable"...#wellsaidless than a minute ago via EchofonBrian Carter
briwcarter

Sounds pretty great, right? So thank you again, EdCamp Philly organizers.