Yesterday I attended TeachMeet Sydney. This was a meeting/un-conferences where teachers shared good practice, practical ideas and personal insights into teaching with technology.
Various participants volunteered the ideas, tools or a websites they’ve used in their classroom.
Held at the Eveleigh Technology Park in Sydney, TeachMeet was an outstanding success. Presenters in plenary style sessions were limited to 7 minutes each. In smaller workshops this was down to 2 minutes.
It simply wasn’t possible to take it all in, there was so much more going on that I could only just sense through the Twitter feeds at #TMSydney
There was rich discussion and lots of fascinating stories about practice and about students responses to some of the inspired ideas contributed by this dynamic collection of teachers, consultants and the occasional student.
Teachers from all types of schools were there, demonstrating, networking, sharing and collaborating. Attendees can be viewed on this Google spreadsheet. Take the opportunity to look at just who you might include in your PLN, if you missed them yesterday
TeachMeet Sydney was open to all. If you’d like to know more, there’s a Wiki and here are the analytics.
How it all started
Unassumingly dynamic with his Harry Potter glasses Ewan Mcintosh was, in a sense, the keynote speaker. Even Ewan, convenor of the first Teach Meet six years ago in an Edinburgh pub, like everyone else in that first plenary, restricted his comments to seven minutes.
When I started to search for more background on that first event I came across Ewan’s Education Blog. As is often the case when trawling through cyberspace, it wasn’t long before I started to drift off onto one of the posts, actually a YouTube video, on the Blog.
It explores the changing relationship children have with technology and the capacity such tools have for assisting children to approach learning in a self organising manner.
What changes does this imply in the types of relationships the professional educator needs to develop with learners?
Russell Darnley Blog 