Category: Teachmeet

A TeachMeet Hub at the Learning Science Research Institute, University of Nottingham

TeachmeetPublished on5 Comments on A TeachMeet Hub at the Learning Science Research Institute, University of Nottingham

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.

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Diagonals by blinkingidiot
Attribution-NoDerivs License

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.
Please let me know your thoughts on the potential of these ideas, your own suggestions for making the most of this generous invitation, whether you could attend a Purpos/ed event or how you might like to be involved in moving this forward.

 

TeachMeet Midlands 20th May 2011

TeachmeetPublished on3 Comments on TeachMeet Midlands 20th May 2011

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I am delighted to be announcing that there will be another Midlands TeachMeet this year. Hot on the heels of the great success in Lutterworth at Spring half term comes Teachmeet Midlands 2011 take two!

We are in celebratory mood as it is the 5th anniversary of the best type of teacher professional you will ever be involved with. There are stacks of events kicking off around the UK to mark the celebration – which are you involved in?

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2 years ago Stuart Sutherland and I organised the first TeachMeet Midlands at the National College in Nottingham and we are really pleased to announce we will be using this stunning venue again. We also welcome along the huge expertise of Kevin Mulryne to the organising team who has (amongst other things) the challenge of making the streamed online experience the best it has ever been for a TeachMeet.

It was a great success last time out and I am sure those who attended will comment that the venue contributed to the quality of what we learned that night – I am sure it will be the same this year.

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Head on over to the wiki and sign up to lurk or even to give a short presentation about an interesting story of learning.

But wait there is more – here is my personal challenge to you, yes that includes all you regulars who enjoy these events. We need to find those who may never have heard of TeachMeet before. We need to go that extra mile this year to spread the word.

So choose:

  • Tell 2 people about TeachMeet Midlands who would not normally discover this type of event.
  • Encourage 2 people to go to TeachMeet Midlands (or one of the TM5 events this year.)
  • Bring 2 people with you who would not normally attend.

Leave a comment to show how you have helped spread the word.

Which are you going to do? It could change the way they perceive teacher professional development forever.

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Pics

The main room awaits TeachMeet Midlands 2009 By Mr Ush

John Sutton’s session at TeachMeet Midlands 2009 By Mr Ush

Using Kinectimals to Support Play in the Early Years Classroom

Curriculum, Games Based Learning, TeachmeetPublished on18 Comments on Using Kinectimals to Support Play in the Early Years Classroom

I would like to introduce to you Marc Faulder who is currently a newly qualified teacher working in Foundation 2 at my school. Last week I challenged Marc to attend TeachMeet Midlands and present about his brilliant work he is doing with the XBox Kinect and the game Kinectimals. He did a great job with his presentation and has followed it up with a guest blog post explaining his ideas. I hope that soon I will be linking back Marc’s own blog where he can continue to share his ideas and classroom work. Over to Marc…

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My blog post follows on neatly from the themes discussed by Tom Barrett in his work with Nintendo Wii’s Endless Ocean. I took on the challenge of introducing Games Based Learning to my Reception class, and to myself! I used an X Box Kinect because game play without a controller seemed ideal for Foundation Stage children. After a 2 – 3 week project on animal homes using Kinectimals as a stimulus, I have reflected on the impact that Games Based Learning had on children’s enquiry. My reflection is structured around four themes; organisation, planning, supported play and Kinect sensitivity. I hope that the successes, difficulties and solutions I found help with any Games Based Learning planning in your classroom.

Organisation

1

  • Originally game play happened in a whole class
  • In twenty minutes only 4 children had a turn: class lost interest
  • Moved X Box to a separate classroom, and groups played on Kinectimals on a large screen TV.

2

  • When returning to the classroom, the whole class discussed progress each group had made in the game – sometimes through role play which was effective.

Planning

  • Originally my planning was very structured.
  • I should have given children more time to explore game play, like you might give children time to explore a new book.
  • When planning group activities on Kinectimals, I planned for specific events in the game.
  • I found that not all groups would unlock that part of the game, or they would choose to explore another part of the game.
  • Planning became much more open ended and child lead.
  • I attached questions relevant to any aspect of game play – what is this place like? Which animals live here?
  • This kind of planning required more resourcing.
  • As well as game play, children in the group engaged with objects and artefacts that might be found in that environment on Kinectimals: shells, sand, logs, leaves, pine cones…

3

Supporting Children’s Play

  • Back in the classroom, children would recreate game play through their child initiated play.
  • They made the water tray a rock pool home
  • They fed our Tigger teddy or lion puppet carrots and water – as that is what their Kinectimal ate in the game.
  • Children used the resources from the group time in their own activities
  • Writing became incidental; they wanted to write ideas down from the game to share in the classroom

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Kinect Sensitivity

  • The camera was sensitive enough to recognise large scale movements the same as small scale movements – any sized kick or throw would give the same response in the game
  • But the camera isn’t sensitive enough to prevent adults from intervening.
  • If a child was struggling to play the game, I could crouch behind them and either move their arms for them or use my hands to model the actions required
  • Transition between players was mostly seamless. Players can step in and out of the cameras viewpoint and the X Box would continue the activity that was being played.
  • There is also a swap player function during game play, but we never had to use this.

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Final Reflection

Games Based Learning isn’t about playing on the game every day, for long periods of time. I’ve realised that the game is used to inspire children’s interest and is a great format to let children take control of planning and learning. As game play doesn’t occur at the pace I played it, I had to be much more open with my planning and support learning through children’s interests. I have learned so much about my teaching and children’s learning through games.

Protect the TeachMeet Format

TeachmeetPublished on14 Comments on Protect the TeachMeet Format

4278754382 851538464aA TeachMeet is an informal gathering of educators curious about other people’s ideas on learning. Educators are a nosey bunch! We love the chance to look around other people’s classrooms and to use ideas that have had success elsewhere.

When we attend a TeachMeet or any professorial development event the currency is ideas, we are dealing in ideas. We go with our own and most of the time we are up for trading them with those from other teachers. Broadly speaking whichever course we are attending we hope there is something that we can take back and apply to our own classes.

I think the emphasis on real, practical ideas and stories from the classroom is great but I think we must always remember that the format they are delivered in must be nurtured too.

One of the main reasons people don’t attend such an event cold, (ie. never attended before, not heard of it before) is the assumption it will be like 95% of all professional development teachers have had since university. Basically an expert, paid, invited, revered (?) speaker telling them how it is / was / should be.

The style of TeachMeet breaks that mould. The people attending are all experts, there is a relaxed approach to learning. We all understand that some of us prefer to flit between things, some of us prefer to become engrossed. Some of us stand, some of us sit, some of us Tweet. And that is all OK.

One of the reasons we don’t present is that so many of us believe our own ideas are not going to be good enough. That MY IDEA + CONFERENCE + PRESENTING = DOOM. But our own ideas are ones we have already committed to – so often they are successful little sparks that have been brilliantly useful in our own spaces. Growing into glowing flames in our classrooms. How do we get beyond the thought that sharing the flame might extinguish it?

Perhaps we need to organise smaller TeachMeets.

If I attended a meeting with 20 educators and I took away 19 practical classroom ideas – I would be really happy! Are those 20 people going to be more willing to share their ideas in that smaller group – probably. Are those 20 teachers going to return to their schools ever so slightly more willing to speak up in a staff meeting and make their voice heard and to share an idea they got from elsewhere – hopefully.

So the very nature of the event needs to be nurtured so that it is not what you might think from a conference. That old assumptions have to be disbanded from the outset. After all a teachmeet doesn’t need a sponsor, technology – it just needs us to bring our ideas and be willing to make that trade.

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Pic – TeachMeet at BETT 2010 by Mr Ush

TeachMeet Hits its Fourth Birthday: Coming of Age #tmfuture

TeachmeetPublished onUpdated on7 Comments on TeachMeet Hits its Fourth Birthday: Coming of Age #tmfuture

3540648108 93722634cf mTeachMeet is entering its fifth year and the unconference for teachers, by teachers has helped hundreds – maybe thousands, in fact – to try out something new, alter the way they already teach and learn, join a community of innovative educators or completely transform their way of working.

The hope was that the model would spread. It has, but as those who have created and helped pull TeachMeet together over the past four years, we want to see it spread further, deeper and with increasing quality of input from practitioners. This post outlines how we think we might manage this.

This is the beginnings of a conversation with those who care about TeachMeet. Add your views in the form of any blog post or comment or tweet – tag it #tmfuture

What are the goals of TeachMeet?

TeachMeet was originally designed to:

  • Take thinking away from the formal, often commercialised conference floor, and provide a safe place for anyone to pitch their practice.
  • Provide a forum for more teachers to talk about real learning happening in real places, than one-hour conference seminar slots allow.
  • Showcase emerging practice that we could all aim to undertake; sales pitches not allowed.
  • Be all about the Teach, with only a nod towards tech that paved the way for new practice.
  • Provoke new ways of sharing our stories: PowerPoint was banned. We wanted people to tell stories in ways that challenged them, and the audience.
  • Empower the audience to critique, ask questions and probe, all online, through SMS or, later, Twitter.

Over the years, these ‘rules’ have altered, leading to some great innovations, others less so. The answer to “What is a TeachMeet?” has become a myriad of meanings, some pretty far off the original goals. We need to help and support people to organise, run and contribute to events that build on previous ones. We need to make TeachMeet as accessible to newbies as it was in 2005. We need TeachMeet to once more find its focus.

Supporting the “infectiousness” of TeachMeets

  • Organising TeachMeets should not be easy. Taking part in them should be. But more support is needed for organisers.
  • Sponsorship is hard if there’s no bank account into which funds can be sent.
  • Without sponsorship, any event over 30 people becomes tricky to organise while also giving people a special night of learning, the time, space and mood that gets people over their self-conscious selves.
  • Paying for refreshments and venues is impossible if there’s no organisation to pay them the precise sum.
  • The best TeachMeets provide social space, social activity, entertaining MCs, good refreshments, good online coverage and some form of online ‘conclusion’ – this needs coordinating by the organiser(s), but it’s not a skill everyone will have the first time around.
  • We’ve got a superb opportunity to curate the best bits from all these TeachMeets that are happening weekly – this needs a degree of oversight.

A means to make TeachMeet more sustainable, easier to use for sponsors and organisers, and have the ability to do something spectacular

TeachMeet is owned by the community that shape it – but there needs to be a body to manage sponsorship and sponsors, and provide support for new organisers so that they maintain the TeachMeet goals. We assume that if someone is organising a ‘TeachMeet’ they would like to emulate the success of those popular early TeachMeets, and better-supported national conference ones (e.g. SLF and BETT).

What would support from the TeachMeet body look like?

  • Seeking of sponsorship all year round – including ways and means to get your message to as many teachers as possible
  • Brokerage of sponsorship – i.e. one place sponsors and those seeking sponsorship can come together, in a transparent manner
  • Recommendation of onsite support (good venues at discounted rates/free, A/V, event organisation [for bigger venues], catering etc)
  • Suggestions for various formats that have worked in the past
  • Mentoring from previous TeachMeet leaders including on-the-night help
  • Featuring of content and promotion of the event in a timely manner on an aggregated, higher profile TeachMeet site
  • A group calendar so that events can be seen by geography and date
  • Promotion of TeachMeet through international and national events, using contacts of existing TeachMeeters
  • In-event publicity (e.g. if you plan an event at a regional ICT day or national event, then we can help broker paper materials for insertion into packs etc)

But, above all, TeachMeet is reaching a point of saturation in the UK – things are going really well in terms of enthusing teachers about their own learning. We have a great opportunity to carry over a small proportion of the sponsorship and contributions towards creating a TeachMeet culture in countries where teacher professional development in this way is still blocked by barriers physical, financial or cultural. This is just one idea, harboured for a long time but unable to realise in the current setup.

This body can take the form of:

  • A Limited company (with a Director and shareholders)
  • A Charitable Limited Company, with a board of directors and voting rights for fellow ‘shareholders’ (we could work out some way of people being ‘awarded’ shares based on [non-financial] involvement?)
  • A Social Enterprise, perhaps formed as a Limited Company (see more information on what this means and how it might work (pdf))
  • A Charity (this feels like a lot more red tape to pull through and perhaps not entirely necessary)

As we take things forward we invite you to contribute your ideas and thoughts to make things work smoothly. We want you to comment, probe and make your own suggestions before the end of June, using the tag #tmfuture

Pic: The main room awaits TeachMeet Midlands 2009 :: Ian Usher