It's 10pm. I can't sleep. In just over two weeks' time we're supposed to be having a gathering of Scotland's most innovative educators who care to show up for the ninth TeachMeet, at Learning and Scotland's Scottish Learning Festival. Fifty clever people have already said they'll turn up, speeding across the M8 and A9 to get there. The topics are fascinating. But we have no home, no wifi, no beer.
Traditionally, I've had enough time 'donated' by LTS to go find all of the above, and generally, thanks to some incredibly generous support from the likes of Softease, Channel 4 and RM, and efforts of those who come along, we've had an amazing evening that has genuinely pushed thinking forward, and changed the face of the well-funded main shows (Scottish Learning Festival and BETT).
This year, though, despite knocking on some new doors, we do not have the venue/wifi/affordable beverage combination that we require. We have had an offer of a space within a hotel a taxi-ride away from the SECC, but hotels have traditionally been more problematic than welcoming: wifi is rarely anything but extortionate and the £8 "corking charges" are tragically predictable. Frankly, if we don't have the required combo by close of business Friday I doubt the future of TeachMeet08 at the Scottish Learning Festival. It may just be Meet08, down at the local pub on Clydeside.
It's time to see whether the TeachMeet that invariably has been described as the "best CPD ever" by Mr Bray, and "what professional development is all about" by Mr Heppell, can survive on crowdsourcing alone.
This is a last-ditch attempt to gain the ears of those whose livelihood it is to support professional development of teachers (and not the ears of those who job it isn't, but who have previously so generously given): show your £s, and help not only provide a venue but the environment that makes TeachMeet different from every other stilted CPD event out there. It sounds crude, but it sounds necessary to me, too. We do not need a hotel room; we need somewhere inspirational, funky, cool. TeachMeet shouldn't have to beg; given its rep and what happens when the venue is right, it should have a venue to match its 50+ teacher speakers.
And, in the meantime, if the TeachMeet community have some ideas of more informal inspiring venues that could still work for helping people share their innovations, get them on the wiki pronto!
Photo: Homeless
Is this for real, or is it some blogging pals having a belated April's fool?
Hi Ewan
I really was impressed with your blog. I have a high quality free dating service and was wondering if you would be interested in doing a review? We target mainly the U.S. , but also Canada, England, Australia and Scotland.
Not sure if you have done any dating site reviews but it does make for interesting reading. It could possibly be the implications of dating sites on relationships and if they really survive.
Look forward to hearing from you!
Dede Watson
Dede. I think not. However, you've got me thinking I really should plug Channel 4's excellent Sexperience season, starting tonight.
Pic: Dating
Spore launches today, unleashing one of the most in-depth creative and, even in advance of its launch, socially active games I've seen in a while.
I've not managed to get my hands on a copy yet and, frankly, have some equally important things that need seen to before I get a play, but thankfully some of our Oz educator cousins have been at it already and have blogged their (overwhelmingly positive) thoughts. The game will be/is thankfully available on a more "interstitial" basis on the Nintendo DS and mobile platforms, for those of us whose concentration and energy spans are on the shorter side. Above all, though, is the promise of plenty of web action to pull the collective enthusiasm and understanding of the game of its players.
Back at Easter I was pitching the idea of Sporeversity to EA, something which may indeed have evolved into the as-yet-unlaunched Spore wiki on the main website. In any case, if they don't do it (and even if they do) the fans will be creating their own networks to describe their virtual lives as well as their real ones. Indeed, if you've had a play, do give me a quick ping so edu.blogs.com readers and I can see your thoughts on it, too.
Things have started to move on the TeachMeet08 site, and you're invited to add your name to the list of attendees for an evening of sharing some of the coolest and most exciting ideas for learning from this past year on September 24th.
I'm not able to take quite as much of a role this year in shaping the sponsorship, although I've put some feelers out for a potential venue. LTS have offered some degree of support already in that respect if one of our current short leat of potential places can't work out.
However, if you can help in any way - beer money, £x towards any costs or a particular expense in particular, cool stuff - then please add your name, organisation and contribution to the wiki.
There are lots of reasons for getting involved in this kind of way, none more appealing than the fact the event has, for the last three years, taken on "must attend" status amongst many of the most innovative teachers in the country, particularly those making use of new media and gaming in the classroom. The potential for some blog link love and good word of mouth about your stuff is great. Here's hoping you can help!
We're heading towards the end of a marathon week in Canada, firstly in Alberta and now in Saskatchewan, working with educators, administrators and leaders of learning to think about some new ways we could inspire tomorrow's generations.
All the links from the past week which I've mentioned, examined or peeled back in my workshops can be found under the big Canada grouping in my online bookmarks. Within that, one can just click the small + sign next to any additional category that takes your fancy to narrow down the options. Happy researching and, above all, tell us here how you get on.
Image of Saskatchewan
The video-sharing website has been perhaps the easiest one in the new media family for institutions and workplaces to ban, filter and decry. This superb hour from Michael Wesch explains, from beginning to end, the anthropology of YouTube, and will perhaps begin to show to those who make the decisions how much more there is to sharing the moving image than they could ever imagine. Watch it on YouTube, and pump it up to the high quality version. Watch it to the end, and share it with someone in your institution. And yes, I did learn how to Soulja Boy after watching it.
What Einstein wrote in a letter to his son. Oh, how true.
Thanks, SwissMiss.
Update: I like this turn on things by Gerald Priestland on faith, courtesy of Blethers. Not sure if new media is a science, art or faith, though.
Maybe one of the last of these podcasting workshops I ever do. Not that they're bad, but I think I'll have some other things on my to-do list. Here are Colin, Tara and the unknown Canadian telling me where to go out in Calgary this weekend. You'd be welcome to join me...
Download Emerge 08 The Big Night Out Podcast
I'm making some Beatles references in this morning's keynote at the Alberta 1-2-1 Summer Institute in Calgary. In my morning aggregator rummage I found this gem, an animation produced in the space of nearly 40 years, by a child who became a man. For me, many of the messages about achieving peace through the equipment and space of the Establishment could be translated into the kind of daily struggles some of us have in our domains.
For me, it's trying to inspire people to make a little extra push in the name of innovation, learning something new or make a little trouble to see where it goes. Take five minutes out to watch this and let me know if you see any parallels with your way of thinking, working, living. From YouTube:
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatles fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.
Having reached the underwhelming nirvana of having nothing on my GTD list for the first time in three years, I'm considering a change of tack after reading about this on Info Aesthetics:
an alternative way to represent time schedule tracking by stacking different lengths of Lego blocks as a way to convey different sequential time periods. stacking hourly rows on top of each other builds up the whole day, while color represents the different projects at hand. a whole week of time tracking is created by setting up a series of rainbow-colored days. [original link]
It could be quite a nice way for kids to keep a non-verbal record of what they've done that day. It could be better than text, even, since they have to have some degree of understanding of how all the blocks of activity actually fit together in the abstract, having had the opportunity to build what they did in the concrete (or, rather, in the plastic). I wonder if it'll make it onto the newly revamped Assessment for Learning Toolkit...
Over the past three years at Learning and Teaching Scotland I've seen significant change in the way things have been done, largely thanks to the humble blog and the voices behind them. By pressing the need for authenticity in what's said, rather than some glossy, postcard format marcoms message ruling us all, we've seen the beginnings of a healthy little blogosphere in LTS Towers, both externally and, in true iceberg fashion, internally, under the glossy surface.
There are undoubtedly non-believers in all this authentic-voice-stuff that still remain (we're a Government body, this project is too big to allow the simple message we've created to leave people's minds, we need to make sure people use the correct acronym [is it CfE, aCfE or ACE?]) but, by and large, especially since this summer's Inspiration Sessions and Mike Coulter's work in-house, there is an ever increasing chance that if you want to find out more about the people behind the policy, the implementation, the ideas or the websites, that they have a blog. You can converse with - no offence intended - the horse's mouth. From professional development experts to web services, the magazine to the gaming guys, the geeks to the boss, it's covered. If you want to see behind the scenes at the Scottish Learning Festival, be our guest, and see the stand designs, the podcast preps and even take a look at how well (and not so well) the Festival is doing. LTS is well on its way to finding and sharing its voice.
And here's the crunch. People I know will object to this blog post, as they have objected to so many others. It makes them uncomfortable. They wonder if I'm talking about them in the para above. Or am I? Good. It's vital that the politic that got me a job with the education agency remains, for a month or two more at least, in people's heads: all anyone wants from a non-governmental body, a government, an organisation, a company is complete and utter authenticity. No compromises. No jargon. No marcoms crap that gets in the way of what really matters: "what are you doing to help me, and how can I help you?"
If you're still left thinking this is rubbish, and that traditional 20th Century corporate communications have a place in this connected world, then go read Seth Godin's superb rundown of NASA's best ever spokesperson, and then think about what watchlists need to be created, press releases junked and bloggers befriended. Happy blogging, folks.
Pic: Neil Armstrong
I've spoken at nearly 3000 people, and with hundreds more over the last month of conferences, workshops and socials. I'm off to be a Godfather for a few days having found an antidote to all this conferencing:
Inspiration Session #4 is the must-attend lunchtime session this year, showing, six weeks before the Scottish Learning Festival, how you can present anything in the most fascinating, entertaining and informative way when you know how. Since it's the summer hols for most teachers in Scotland, you're invited to join us with your laptop computer and creativity to see what ideas you can learn and share.
If you are presenting at SLF2008 or have to explain concepts to colleagues, teachers or outside partners, this workshop is for you. Inspiration Session 4 "The Best Stats You've Ever Seen (or how to present) takes place on August 11th, midday until 2pm, in the classroom in LTS's Glasgow office, with breakouts happening all afternoon. Please get your confirmation in early to aid planning.
All those wishing attend should confirm by email to me asap. We will begin by viewing a superb presentation on, potentially, the most boring of subjects: global statistics. We'll take a look at how and why that presentation and others are so good, before working on a presentation you are doing some time soon, or have done in the past.
You will not just learn how to exploit presentation packages, but how to present well without them at all, using the web and digital images, making and capturing short video. Please think about bringing along your favourite presentation laptop (Mac or PC laptop), and a presentation in PowerPoint, Keynote or other package (make a copy so you keep the original).
Full write-ups of the previous Inspiration Sessions will also begin to appear over the next few weeks on Connected Live.
Pic: Ewan as a borg at Reboot from Steph Booth
Having spent far too long enjoying the superb suggestions for using a visualiser I'm ready to announce who's going to be offered the chance to pick up their very own - for free - from a dodgy pickup on the Redbridge platform of London's Central line. As a double celebration this is my 1501st post on edu.blogs.com. Hurrah! Thanks to you all for following me this long on my learning journey.
I won one of these devices, shown off with a certain degree of style by John Davitt in his recent BLC08 keynote, at the North East London TeachMeet, courtesy of the Visualiser Forum. The suggestions for its use included a lot from the world of science demonstrations, showing how to exploit Nintendo DSes and cutting down on photocopied texts. However, the example that, for me, shows a longer-term sustainability, with the student and not the teacher as the main user of the device, is Jaye Richards' short but sweet idea:
I saw these being used in Finland where there was one in every classroom in the schools I visited. I think though, that I would use it for pupils to do regular show and tell/ mini teaching sessions where they came up and demonstrated something or described a concept using their own objects or designs. I think this is a great way of encouraging real literacy and raising the confidence and self-esteem of our pupils. This approach also encourages deep learning and helps the pupils to take on the responsibility for their own lerning, and that of others. It takes peer-assisted learning to a new dimension.
I like the hook into Finland's exemplary practice, which I've been harping on about on this blog for some time, and I like the fact we're looking at peer assessment and student-centred show and tell, an underestimated skill and one that underpins TeachMeets.
So, Jaye, if you can get yourself and a visualiser from London back home, it's yours! Thanks to Anthony at Redbridge who has been keeping it locked up for me all this time. Indeed, he is the person with whom to coordinate your reunion with the kit.
