Traditional Meets Progressive: BarCamp at Old School

On Saturday, November 21st, 2009, Yokohama International School, a school of 85 years, hosted BarCamp Yokohama, with the theme of 21st Century Learning.

First thing I noticed was the fact that November 21st lined up nicely with 21st Century Learning.

Anyways, BarCamp Yokohama was constructed to coincide with YIS' annual Bridging The Gap Conference. In the past, people like Steven Heppell and Alex Kerr headlined the two-day conference as keynote speakers. But this year, the controlling committee decided to try to overhaul the conference with a much more casual, but academically relevant, feel. Instead of anchoring the first day of the conference with long, dragging keynotes in our auditorium, the format moved to workshop-style modules with guests Chris Toy and Kim Cofino. Additionally, teachers also presented topics regarding the matter.

(I presented on Learning in Motion/Questioning the Cutting Edge to all of four people, but the session was productive with a nice conversation with some colleagues. I think we came up with some good ideas, which I will recap in a later post.)

Day two of Bridging The Gap was typically required for all staff to attend, but the requirement was waived this year in the spirit of BarCamp. And this was one key point. Instead of gathering all teachers and staff, all of whom may not have been exceptionally excited to sacrifice half a weekend for a conference at work, the conference naturally gathered motivated, energetic teachers that participated energetically with a large crowd from the learning community that participated at BarCamp Tokyo in May.

The resulting unconference was an amazing confluence of knowledge, discourse and energy. For the first time in my three BTGs, the second day felt relevant. The content felt genuine and relevant to the entire conversation of the school, the 21st Century and education. It was also the first time since Learning 2.0 that I felt totally overwhelmed by what I came out with.

Although I hate resorting to writing with bullet points, the fragmented nature of being part participant/incendiary bomb, part photographer drives it that way...

• I hosted one session called "The Design Process: It's Everywhere! Why Differentiate?". The idea? In school, we basically learn variants of the same process of trial & error, similar to the design process. Science calls it the scientific method. English has a basic writing cycle of drafts and edits. The Arts, especially visual art, use it in its most recognizable form. Engineering, computer science, they all use similar processes, but it's never really touched on. I think we all agreed that this was true, but it was interesting how it also turned into an analysis of teaching, learning and school as well. The conversation weaved in and out, but it was very interesting to hear.
• It was quite interesting to see some discourse over education systems, including our own. This was yet another first, as from my window, I had never seen it be discussed at our school so openly. Though we (obviously) didn't find the Holy Grail, we were able to weigh the various types of education systems and have a conversation about the strains of our current system of a compulsory IB Diploma Program.
• I particularly enjoyed the debate over what exactly the youth of the world need to learn in schools.
• I am sad I wasn't able to participate in the more technological conversations this time.
• Lunch of Thanksgiving turkey, roast lamb and the full fixings was amazing!
• Probably thanks to the theme at hand, this BarCamp involved a lot of intellectual discourse over the raw technology at the last one. It was also much more political. From liberalism, centrism and conservatism, it was all covered and debated. Internationalism and globalism were also questioned. And it never got messy!
• Colin Campbell's workshop on learning & technology was fun, as was Roger's workshop on the IB being a refined sausage machine. It was also great to have a workshop on juggling, hosted by Tara Ohta, a parent at the school. There were also some great workshops by Kyle Hasegawa too.
• Dinner in Chinatown with Lhuga, Ohta-san, Stuart and a mix of others was good times too.

Overall, it was great. Though we ended a bit earlier than the last BarCamp, I was just as tired.

Over the next few days, I'll try to post my BTG reflections too. And of course, links to the pile of photos I took.