I am delighted to say that after a meeting with Charles Crook, the Director of the Learning Science Research Institute (LSRI) from October 2011, there is the open invitation to use their facilities for community events.
The LSRI at the university of Nottingham has meeting rooms laden with monitoring equipment to capture, stream and archive events.
The National College for School Leadership has supported TeachMeet events for a number of years and I am pleased that the university might make such a generous offer to continue to help the community. The main space at the LSRI can hold between 20-30 people however there is the potential for other university spaces to be made available too.
Diagonals by blinkingidiot
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I am seeking some reaction from you all about a few different elements, so please take a look and let me know what you think.
TeachMeet Hub
- The space offered by the LSRI could be used by the TeachMeet community, in fact that is what instigated the meeting, on a semi permanent basis to host events.
- It would be good to develop regular events in the space provided, once a month say.
- The frequency of events would mean we could be more open to specific topics being covered or explored in more depth.
- Whole schools could use the event space to conduct there own TeachMeet style event.
- A range of colleagues from the university and LSRI could contribute relevant research to specific groups.
- Local links made with the university.
- Small TeachMeets up to 30 people.
- Captured, broadcast and archived using the professional facilities available.
- No cost to use the space.
Purpos/ed Assess
- On the back of the current Purpos/ed campaign about assessment I am keen to hold a small event in the space offered by LSRI.
- The informal meeting would extend the debate and discussion that has continued around the agenda of assessment in schools.
- We would explore the challenges we face, practical solutions and what we perceive to be future directions.
- Again it would be up to about 30 people.
- Early September.
Thanks Kevin – early days yet but as you say there is plenty of potential for universities and other such facilities offering a permament local base in different areas. We will see how things develop. Thanks for the offer of help too.
Hi Tom and Dughall. Yes this is a great move forward. I think there is great potential for including more ‘non-connected’ colleagues and the AV aspect can only be positive. I have thought for a long time that there should be a TeachMeet digital archive somewhere – perhaps this can also be considered?
As I am ‘over the lake’ from the venue for part of each week, also put me down for whatever help I can be.
Surely Universities around the country could be convinced of the usefulness of this approach. Perhaps, once the first is up and running successfully, others will want to become involved – when they see the positive benefits. Universities which have strong teacher training and/or education departments would be good to target. I woul be happy to be involved with this – I am close to Warwick University (and have a few links there) and my own College, Homerton in Cambridge might be another to contact.
Well done Tom!
I agree, the potential in this arrangement to help engage similar venues in something comparable would be great. Thanks for bringing this up. With the AV and venue arrangements out of the way it would allow people the space to concentrate on the content.
I think this is a really positive move. The idea of a semi-permanent hub seems a really good one. I especially like the idea that the venue will be essentially free, but will also have AV expertise and facilities for capture/broadcast on hand. In my experience, these are important (though not essential) elements in successful teachmeets and from an organiser’s point of view, great to have these taken care of.
I can only anticipate success for this arrangement. My immediate thoughts, however, turn to the future. How do we ensure that such a hub exists within easy reach of every school in the UK/World? If LSRI can see the benefit, surely this is a great potential shoe-in with other organisations/institutions.