Barcamp Philly was Saturday and was aaaawesome. It was my first time, and I gotta say, I was really impressed with the people, the talks, and the amount of genuine participation from all of the attendees.

A New Age of Apprenticeship

I had the pleasure of helping out Brian Kirk from TechnicallyPhilly with a talk called “Re-imagining the public computer center.”

We got a lively discussion going about the purpose and use of government and privately sponsored computer centers, but quickly moved on to teaching styles and the shifting role of education. @jcyvii demonstrated how he uses Khan Academy to handle the wide range of math skill levels in his 7th grade class.

I think one of the main takeaways was that the availability of computers and technology to students is half the battle, and to make a difference, community leaders need to draw short term paths to long term goals for students to use the resources effectively. Furthermore, it’s up to us to define the role of education for future generations. I believe an apprenticeship renaissance is upon us. I’ll elaborate more in a future post.

#PhillyBurbWorking

Around 12:30pm I stumbled into a session titled “Rockin the Suburbs” hosted by Todd Hiestand. We started talking and quickly realized that we all shared a common need for a shared working experience in the suburbs. (I live in the city now, but I grew up in Lafayette Hill and have been shocked at the amount of resources that are idle in my hometown and surrounding areas.)

Since most people in the room are spread out around the greater Philly area, we acknowledged that opening a space isn’t the best short term approach, but rather, pick venues that can serve as greatest common denominators across the region. We ended up choosing the Plymouth Meeting area as a starting point.

Of course, the venue itself is not the only core component of a coworking experience, but instead, the community. I’m excited to be a part of it, and to see where we can take it.

We put together a few resources to pull us all together and keep everyone informed:

• @phillyburbwrkng
• #burbworking #phillyburbworking
• PhillyBurbWorking Google Group
• PhillyBurbWorking Calendar
• Philly Burbs Member Map

If you’re interested, get involved!

All in all, I had a great time, met a bunch of great people, and am I excited to do it again next year. Hopefully some photos to come(sober and not so sober). Technically Philly just posted a great wrap-up here as well.

Links:

• BarCampPhilly.org
• #bcphilly
• @barcamphilly