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September 21st, 2007The second day of the Scottish Learning Festival is over and I’ve had another great day.
I started at the Islay High: School of Ambition talk which Andrew Brown blogged: Ambition – island style.. An inspiring presentation the school sounds as if it is a great environment for learning.
Next I spent some time on the show floor, not so much looking at the products, but chatting to various folk. First I had coffee with David and talked TeachMeet07, mobiles and GPS. Then I met Marlyn and Morag and talked iPod recorders, online games and swapped links. These sort of chats really make coming to the Scottish Learning Festival worthwhile.
Next I had a Glow person on the Glow stand take me through the portal, I am still thinking about where Glow stands with what I already do online. Another person watching with me suggested that Glow will do away with the need for school websites!
I was also interested to see a YouTube video in the portal example. I wonder how many LAs this would get past?
After lunch I watched Pete Liddle talk about Neverwinter Nights at the LTS stand. Pete had video of his pupils and the game making is a good fit with aCfE.
Pete is one of the coders behind ScotEduBlogs.
Among the pile of interesting stuff Pete mentioned was that the children asked him to stop giving them new stuff as they practised and learned at their own rate, class experts appeared and helped others, the project seems to have become children led.
I sprinted up to and arrived at Sharon Tonner’s Mobile Phones – Constructive Not Destructive a little late. she and her pupils taking the audience through a series of mobile exercises with her pupils providing technical support. I hope Sharon will put notes on all the exercises on her TecnoTeach blog.
I followed this with more time on the floor checking some handheld technology and falling for the iPod touch. By the end of the day Mark Pentleton at the Apple stand showed me the new iMovie 08 which, counter to some stuff I’ve read, looks like it would be very useful in the primary classroom, better for the simple stuff, and I find the simple stuff is what I do in the classroom.
So by the end of the day, I’d missed all the keynotes but learned a Festival’s worth of information. A great day, thanks to everyone who talked to me.
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