Yesterday, as the European eTwinning Ambassadors PDW at National college of School Leadership in Nottingham drew to a close, I took part in what Drew Buddie aka @digitalmaverick entitled ‘a Teachmeet style-y thingy’.
Drew introduced the idea of an ‘unconference’ explaining both TedX and Teachmeet before opening the floor to others to share their 7 minute micro or 2 minute nano presentations.
I was first up – see the next post for my presentation – and later for a video of it (if it’s not too hideous!)
Other presenters were-
Lieven from Flanders who shared his magnificent projects, all documented on his blog. These included repurposing old computer mice, decorating them and then using TuxPaint to animate them (MouseArt), using Pivot to make animations of bubbles (B@llobees) and also to make animated characters @ni & M@te who travelled to other schools and found out about them.
Two things that particularly struck me were firstly when Lieven said he liked ‘making the unexpected valuable’ which struck a chord, and also the use of technology to back up and enhance more traditional methods eg the Kindergarten pupils made bubble pictures with paint and straws, and those pieces of art were used as the background for the Bubble animations.
Next up was Paddy who talked about his eTwinning project Wii will rock you which used the Nintendo Wii as a stimulus. I enjoyed this presentation as Paddy underlined that it was not all about playing games, but that the games were the starting point for other activities – writing letters, designing CD covers, planning tours with travel plans and money considerations, cooperation with other children, publicity and negotiation. They also worked on a joint sports day with a school in ireland with some ‘traditional’ sports day activities as well as Wii based ones.
Then Susi Arnott shared about using comic strips and Comic Life, and how the process of looking at comics enhanced the understanding of texts and enhanced literacy skills. She mentioned Bitstrips which I will be investigating!
Drew used Twitter to ask why people went to Teachmeets- responses included:
‘the range of ideas’
‘a cross subject sharing of ideas’
‘non threatening’ collaborative spirit’
‘celebrating work done in my classroom’
‘meeting like minded colleagues leads to great PLNs’
‘at least 20 ideas for use tomorrow’
‘widens my ideas’
Nick Falk finished up the meet with a nano-presentation on the use of QR codes and QR readers in mobile phones. Very interesting, and something I need to investigate!
No camel, no fruit machine and no alcohol; but otherwise pretty like a normal TeachMeet! Oh, and no cupcakes. Sorry @niiloa
As well as teaching Spanish at Whitehouse Common Primary, I am also often asked to speak at conferences about Primary Languages and how I teach using ICT.
