TeachMeet2

On the back of the success of our first ever TeachMeet the second one was held on the filthiest night of the wettest July in 60 years. Despite the weather, 70 teachers gave up there own time to travel from far and wide to yet again share ideas around their use of technology and contemporary teaching and learning in (and out of) the classroom. We heard about everything from Year 1 students using digital cameras to stimulate and blend into artwork to using Flubaroo to automatically mark tests, using iPads as dataloggers in Science, Google+ (beamed in from Belgium!) and much, much more. The presentation materials should gradually be appearing here.

Yet again though the real beauty of the day was the networking between the teachers. There were Kindy teachers sharing will HSC Physics teachers, first-year-outs conversing with Principals (yes Principals turned up too!) along with visiting teachers from other parts of Sydney and other school sectors. It was amazing to witness the collaboration and collegiality and an absolute pleasure to be a part of it all. We are already planning the next TeachMeet as we have some real momentum here a lot of buzz.

Many thanks must go out to Domremy College for their exceptional hospitality and to everyone who attended. Particular thanks to those behind the scenes: @pvlies, @timdoyle1, @acoure and @mickprest. TM3 here we come! Please join us or follow on #ceotm and hopefully UStream again.
(Slideshow below courtesy of @timdoyle1)

The Power of a Personal Learning Network

This was my Keynote from the Networked Social Learner Conference #NSL2011 at Oakhill in July. During the workshop I recounted the story of the eLearning in Languages day we ran last term:

The group of mostly Italian ladies (hence the title within the Prezi) were already a cohesive PLN but perhaps only communicating via email, meeting once per term if lucky and isolated from the rest of the world. On the day we got them on to Twitter and developing resources on a shared Google Doc. The real beauty of the day was sharing their work over Twitter with my PLN. A spin off of this was the new connections being made and the Languages PLN growing. With retweets and people following the feed we had contributions and offers of support from elsewhere in NSW, England, Scotland, Turkey and even Venezuela!

A PLN is a powerful thing and wonderful to witness in action. It is very satisfying assisting colleagues in developing their own PLN.

The Power of a Personal Learning Network on Prezi

eLearning in Languages

We had a fantastic workshop the other day with Language teachers. They are all wonderful ladies and when they get together it's a blast! However, in many cases there is only one Language teacher per school. This makes having a Personal Learning Network (PLN) all the more important. The teachers were already connecting well. To take this to the next level we got them all onto Twitter and learning the ropes. In the process we set up a list and a hashtag #ceolanguage.

Importantly for a workshop we wanted them to generate ideas, share them and take them away so that the good work would be sustained. As such, we created a Google Doc 20 Interesting Ways to use Technology in Languages (in the style of Tom Barrett) where every teacher had to add at least one idea by the end of the day. (Please add your own ideas).


As ever, here is the Prezi from the workshop:

eLearning in Languages 2011 on Prezi