“If Carlsberg built staff rooms…” Microsoft’s UK Innovative Education Forum 2010

It was billed as one of the best professional development conferences this year and it certainly was. There are too many things to mention so I will mention some of them which I would call the #chickenhighlights and I won’t be mentioning what we call #chickenkaraoke. I also must apologise to all those who attended my talks at #ukief10 as I promised to put all the links on this blog post, I have been snowed under with work not actually real snow as Saltash is officially the only place in the UK not to receive any. We have to thank the tropical Cornish climate for this but we really have snow envy so much that we have now animated our school logo to have snow see here: http://www.saltash.net/main/

#chickenhighlights in no particular order:

Having the opportunity to co-present with Stuart Ball from Microsoft (@innovativeteach) at the Innovative Teachmeet on the Monday night in what was probably the best ever venue for this type of event (see the title of this blog post – you can read more about this in the blogs written in a much better way than I could ever write below)
Having the opportunity to meet so many fantastic teachers or educators all under one roof and having the time to listen to their ideas and projects – this was inspirational.
Hearing the stories of the UK winners and the fantastic work they are doing in their schools
Hearing the inspirational stories from Michael Furdyk and Prof Sugata Mitra
Sharing the work of my school and students with so many delegates
And finally staying in the Hilton Deansgate Manchester what a great hotel!

Oh I suppose I should say winning a innovative teacher award for not winning a UK one before but winning a European and Worldwide one in the past! So as I am lazy but also as there are some fantastic blog posts about what actually happened then the best thing to do is have a read of some of these blog posts from some fantastic teachers below:

David Roger’s http://bit.ly/eeLtiO
Dawn Hallybone’s http://bit.ly/gsNgAO
Alessio Bernadelli’s http://bit.ly/hzbrt0
Kristian Still’s http://bit.ly/gYvUmY
Stuart Ball’s http://bit.ly/dSEEPM

You can also check out some of the livestreaming from the event thanks to Alessio: http://bit.ly/ficxcS and there are some pictures of the event here I particularly like one of the first ones of Kristian Still: http://bit.ly/h9idCE

So here are the links from my presentation as promised but first let me introduce you to Zoe Ross (@zoeross19) who is now officially the chickenlady who was pictured whilst taking part in chicken mastermind she wore the chicken suit with pride and even got some ex-battery chicken eggs as a prize!

Also here is the infamous Gove blabberize that many were talking about:
http://blabberize.com/view/id/331604

Links from presentation:
Embedding twitter tools into powerpoint – http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/powerpoint-twitter-tools/
Songsmith & Community Clips can be downloaded from the Partners in Learning network here: http://bit.ly/ctVyo4
Photosynth – http://photosynth.net/
Deep Zoom – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645050(VS.95).aspx
Flashcards – http://bit.ly/bPrpL8
Freerice – http://www.freerice.com/
Dvolver – http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-304197
Photopeach – http://photopeach.com/album/blo8nv
Doink – http://www.doink.com/clips/chloeemily/562254
Wallwisher – http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/jameshutton

Oh and I nearly forgot here are the 3 songsmiths recorded during the workshops which one is best?
group 1

group 2

group 3

And congratulations to all the ten UK winners and especially those who now go to Moscow – all our winners for the fantastic and innovative work that they do every day in the classroom well done!