During March our school had a fantastic professional development conference and it has taken me nearly 6 weeks to reflect on what actually happened. Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing posts about it with some professional development tips and ideas for you all. The first one here is a guest post written by the Headteacher Isobel Bryce which gives an introduction of what it was all about.
Staff at saltash.net community school were given an outstanding opportunity for professional development recently when 50 teachers attended a conference at the Bedruthan Steps Hotel. Entitled ‘Engage and Inspire’, and sponsored entirely by Microsoft UK, the event ran from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon on the 4th and 5th March.
The Conference commenced with two exceptional speakers: ex Marine Commando, Ben McBean (@benmcbean) and Professor Sugata Mitra (@sugatam) whose pioneering work with a computer ‘Hole in the Wall’ project in the slums of Delhi was the inspiration for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Ben McBean’s talk focused on the way his whole life changed the day he was blown up by a landmine in Afghanistan. Despite losing an arm and a leg he has gone on to run two London Marathons and walk to Everest Base Camp in the Himalayas. His message of ‘Cheerfulness in Adversity’ and of being a resilient learner was continued by Sugata Mitra who focused on the determination of young learners to succeed both in India and in the UK.
Everyone who attended the evening session agreed that the speakers had made a superb contribution to the conference, the main aim of which was to support teachers in their creative and innovative use of new technologies to support their students’ learning.
During the Saturday of the conference, the staff attending were able to listen to ideas from Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor in Learning Technology from the University of Plymouth (@timbuckteeth), Stuart Ball from Microsoft UK (@innovativeteach) and Deputy Headteacher from saltash.net, Dan Roberts, before putting them into practice themselves with a series of workshop sessions. We were also fortunate to be joined by Merlin John (@merlinjohn) who was fantastic to have around to work with the teachers and share experiences of others within education.
All staff were encouraged to share, via a specially created Facebook page or on Twitter, how they would be using the new skills developed with their students back at school.
Commenting on the impact of the conference, Deputy Headteacher, Dan Roberts, who organised the whole event said, “Our staff are incredibly enthusiastic and creative in their approach to learning and teaching with new technologies. There was a real ‘buzz’ at the conference which will continue back at saltash.net for the benefit of all our young people.”
Headteacher, Isobel Bryce added, “I would like to thank Stuart Ball from Microsoft UK Partners in Learning for the excellent support and encouragement given to our school. It was very exciting to hear from Stuart that films made by Microsoft about saltash.net are being shown to the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, this week to demonstrate the impact of new technologies and ICT across the curriculum in schools.”
