Conference - initial reactions (Keynote)
March 30, 2007It is now the day after the conference and I have some time to sit down and reflect on yesterdays conference. For those of you who were unable to make it to Shrewsbury for the day I feel you missed out on some excellent presentations.
The day kicked off early (9am) - too early for some, next year we will move this back to 9.15 (normal start time for other courses/conferences).
After Keith’s housekeeping and my introduction the day started in earnest with Ewan McIntosh. This was an excellent and thought provoking session that really set the tone for the rest of the day, you will be able to view Ewan’s keynote on his blog at some point soon. Some of the schools have already left comments:
Gr8 Keynote. We’re already started on blogs and podcasts and look forward to embedding them both into our work at Barrow. Thanks again for an inspirational day. (John Fenton)
Thanks for an inspirational (overused, but true) talk this morning. Hope the others will go along with me. (Judy Udale)
Thanks so much for the keynote Ewan. Made me feel our little blog could go much further given time and impetus. Weren’t the kids brilliant though? Think we ought to hire them out for training sessions - it’d spice up our rather dull PD training any day! (Jude Brown)
It would be great if other delegates could leave comments here or over at Ewan’s blog. At the end of his session Ewan asked he delegates to indicate their thoughts about:
‘I will attempt to do one of these at least once per month…….choose all that apply……..’
Total delegates who responded 80:
66 Blog instead of email
44 Use a wiki/google docs instead of word
41 Use Technorati instead of Google
15 Share my bookmarks online
25 Use instant messenger
37 Share video and/or images online
Andrea and I will try and follow this up during the summer term to see what schools have attempted to do or have done.
Delegate evaluation of session:
Excellent 90%
Very Good 6%
Good 4%Too much time allocation to session 6%
Enough time allocated 77%
Not enough time 17%
Thanks Steve for inviting Ewan to come and speak -
James WatsonThanks Steve for inviting Ewan to come and speak - it was equally inspirational for those of us in the corporate world working to provide quality resources to help schools collaborate and communicate over the web.
By the way, we too have started a blog about Podium - at http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/blog/ - and will undoubtedly be doing our learning in public too as Ewan discussed yesterday!
Thanks for all the efforts and organisation Steve et al.
Jude BrownThanks for all the efforts and organisation Steve et al. It was really good to get out and visit other schools - we never get to do this at other times and I learned lots from seeing how Thomas Adams’s ICT dept is organised. HAve already nicked and used their google docs file for my Y11 BCS this morning - thanks, Max!
Ewan’s speech was inspirational, but the Primary School pupils’ input was even more so… all the Secondary bods left wondering how we can make sure we build on all the expertise that the Primaries are imparting to their pupils. How about next year (or sooner?!) setting up a pledging system so that we can arrange to visit each other’s schools and share all this good practice, not just on one day?
Comment of the day: “It’s the WorldWideWORK” - I really like that one!
Excellent event and a great day out. Ewan was an
Tim GoodmanExcellent event and a great day out. Ewan was an excellent choice of speaker- entertaining, inspiring and very relevant indeed! I see many ideas for schools as theoretically impressive but wholly impractical in the real world- especially in primary schools, but all of you and your teams’ ideas and recommendations are well thought out and very practical. I will certainly be investing more of my time in school trying to open some eyes to some of the possibilities of blogging and the like! Thanks again. Tim Goodman.
An excellent day thanks to Steve at everyone else for
Gill MedlicottAn excellent day thanks to Steve at everyone else for organising the event! Ewan’s speech left me with so many new ideas to make the key stage 3 curriculum so much more interesting!
I totally agree with Jude’s comment about the primary school pupils!