EdCamp Milwaukee doesn't take place for another six months, but Twitter's already abuzz about the education "unconference" slated for Saturday, May 12, 2012 at South Milwaukee High School.
The one-day event is organized locally by Chad Kafka – a middle school computer teacher and district technology coach at Franklin Public Schools – Tami Lind – a tech coach in South Milwaukee – and Christopher Reuter, who is associate principal at Forest Park Middle School in Merton.
What's an unconference?
It's an event that draws educators, who then set their own agenda for the day. There are workshops, networking and breakout sessions, but no keynotes and no set schedule.
According to the edCamp Milwaukee website, "The day is planned during the kick off at the beginning of the day where any participant can propose a session idea/topic to the Idea Board. All sessions are laid out and then everyone attends sessions they want during the rest of the day."
You can learn more by checking out the short video about edCamp.
As an unidentified speaker in the video notes, "The purpose ... is to put a lot of really smart people together in a room ... we're trying to amplify each others' ideas, really leverage those that help improve what we do and that's teach kids."
EdCamps are taking place around the country – and beyond – and in the next few months, unconferences are slated for, among other places, San Diego; Washington, DC; St. Louis; Chicago; Vancouver Island; Stockholm, Sweden and Santiago, Chile.
You can sign up for email updates here and follow #edcampmke on Twitter @EdCampMKE.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
