If you do one thing next year make sure you see The Pelican – Part 2

So if you have read the first post on PELC10 – you will know a little bit more about it – if you are on twitter then check out the comments and feed by searching using #pelc10 – There are some really interesting comments and discussions on here that are worth picking through.

So I spoke about only the first keynote in my last post and I would love to write in detail all the other workshops and seminars that I attended but I simply just don’t have the time. The theme of the conference was learning without limits, facing the challenges and it really did do this, I have never experienced such a great conference that was grounded in academic rigour and policies that followed down to how this impacted on the learning that students and staff are immersed in.

Next up the first session I attended was on Social Media in Schools led by Simon Finch from Northern Grid for Learning AKA @simfin .This was a great session and I really enjoyed the debate and discussion we had around e-safety and cyber bullying etc not to mention lots of prizes give away. The main thing I came away with were more questions that Simon posed such as: What advice do you give out as a school? E.g. A parent asks you for advice on what webcam to buy? What do you say? What do you do? What would all the staff in your school do? If you do a search on youtube for ‘fat kid’ you get 14,800 videos what do you think of that? What does that say about our society? Should we as teachers in schools – be modelling good practice on how best to use the internet etc? Where does the responsibility of teachers and schools end?

Simfin

These were some fantastic questions that as teachers we should all be asking ourselves and asking our headteachers and governors who are ultimately responsible. What do you think about this? I would be interested to hear your comments about this. Near the end of the first day I carried out my session exploring the question Can using web 2.0 tools help develop independent learners? You can see my presentation here:

http://prezi.com/hjt4h7zhc6xo/

I have to say I have removed the videos to avoid any issues with copyright and permissions. I really enjoyed the presentation and there were some excellent questions from the audience particularly the Meerkat AKA @jamesclay. We still have not had the opportunity to in ‘Harry Hill’ style decide what happens when the Chickenman & the Meerkat get together?

It was great to discuss the work that was happening at Saltash.net Community School in this forum and we had some great comments via twitter afterwards:

“Excellent presentation by @chickensaltash really thought provoking and great end to a great day at #pelc10 well done to all!”

“saltash.net is really a great school where technology is used in a very beneficial way”

“Great use of web2.0 at Saltash.net, impressive pupil engagement and involvement. And looks like fun compared to my education!”

“I hope my local secondary schools are like saltash.net #pelc10 I doubt they are though… “

What a great first day! I didn’t think that it could get any better until we had our conference dinner in the shark tank (well not inside as that would have been wet) but sat under the shark tank at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. It was an amazing setting to reflect and discuss on the days sessions with some great people.

@josiefraser & @simfin chillaxin with the fishes

 If you do one thing next year then put it in your diary now – you have to attend #Pelc11 on April 7th and 8th 2011 Digital Futures: Learning in a connecting world. What do you think? Can you afford to miss it again?

One Comment

on “If you do one thing next year make sure you see The Pelican – Part 2
One Comment on “If you do one thing next year make sure you see The Pelican – Part 2
  1. Can I share your presentation on prezi at a workshop I am running in July to South Australian teachers? (Topic is Using web 2.0 tools for formative assessment)

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