I had a great day yesterday. I stared off blogging Ewan‘s We’re Adopting! An Adoption Strategy for Social Media in Education which I really enjoyed, it is very tempting to move to east Lothian for the support of David Gilmore and the great blogging community they have put together.
After that I chatted to a few folk and walked around nervously before my spot. I accually sort of enjoyed my self and the audience seemed happy enough, I posted a few links and hope I’ll put the presentation up at the weekend.
After that I tried to blog both In the Wild (Glasgow) and Stephen Heppell
I didn’t do a very good job of it so didn’t post anything, both INW and Mr Heppell were really interesting, but I didn’t type anything worth posting, David was typing away and I guess he will have done the job when they arrive on Connected Blog
At 6:00pm we dashed back across to the science centre for TeachMeet07. Previous events have been describes as “My best continuing professional development” by no less than Ollie Bray, who is often described as one of the best cpd providers so a lot to live upto.
This time we had a huge space in the science center and the biggest ever crowd, hopefully someone else will estimate, but 200 bottles of beer didn’t last long.
About 25 people had volunteered to present, most offering seven minute micropresentations and some two minute nano-presentations. This time Ewan had organised a virtual lottery to choose the next presenter and explained that folk should fell free to chat if the presentations did not interest them (it is an un-conference). He had also organised some excellent audio so even in the huge space everyone was clearly heard.
I was delighted to be pulled out the virtual hat first and raced through a quick intro and guide to scotedublogs.org.uk, trying both to explain what it is good for and to get the bloggers in the room to link to scotedublogs.org.uk (this might mean you). It seemed to go down well, the audience was very friendly and encouraging. Maybe because I only took five of my seven minutes.
After that it really was the best cpd in the world, speaker after speaker produced wonderful ideas, the audience cheered and wooted and before you knew it it was 8:30. One or two folk did not get to present, but we managed to here most of the list. I could not pick out anyone particular, but was sorry Ian Stuart and Theo Kuechel were not heard. I had an idea about what they would be talking about and it sounded great.
The atmosphere in the room was amazing, teachers are not always the most cheerful of folk when they are getting after hours training. I do not think I have been in such an open and friendly crowd.
After that it was off to Khublai Khan’s for some food and more excellent cpd. A vote of thanks to Softease who sponsored the weird and wonderful menu.
I probably got more ict teaching tips and great links and ideas than in the rest of my years cpd put together.
I have no idea how this event could have been improved but I am really looking forward to the next one.
