Sessions on the first day were booked up well in advance, with 1000 teachers and auxiliaries spending Tuesday at the festival. I had planned to go along on the second day as the programme had more ICT and secondary sessions of interest to me. However, that changed when I became a late addition to Wednesday’s schedule with a double slot to speak about the work I have been doing with blogging and iTunes in my classroom.
The numbers for my sessions were low on paper but two or three times as many people turned up each time. I spoke briefly about running a blog before explaining how SMART Notebook software can be used to produce a videos that can be downloaded as podcasts with iTunes. Then we looked at the ways in which everyday handheld devices such as mobile phones and iPods can be used for mobile learning. I was genuinely surprised by the level of interest shown and the number of questions I was asked during and after each session.
I was delighted when I managed to squeeze into Ollie Bray & Derek Robertson‘s games-based learning session at 12.30 in between my own slots. I’d met Derek before, he was one of the tutors from my PGCE course, but I had never met Ollie despite having exchanged tweets and interviewed him on Skype for a podcast.
The single disappointment for me was the way that the event finished so quickly in the afternoon. My last slot was over by 2.30 and by then many of the exhibitors were packing up. If the rumours are true and the event is run again next year, then I think I would try to spend more than just one day there to ensure I could take something from the event for my professional development.
As always, I was economic with slides but I have embedded them anyway. There’s also an audio recording of the morning session attached to this post.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I took the telescope out last night for the first time. I was specifically interested in finding out whether or not one of my Advanced Higher Physics pupils would be able to the the telescope for her proposed investigation on Jupiter’s 4 largest moons and Kepler’s Laws of planetary motion.
I found a good spot, well away from lights. If you have Google Earth download this file for the exact location. I was amazed at just how many stars were visible once I was out of the glare of the town lights.
My finder scope alignment was not as good as I had thought and some small adjustments were necessary to find Jupiter in the eyepiece of the main scope. I could not believe how bright Jupiter appeared though the scope and was even more impressed when I realised that the four Galilean moons were also present in my field of view.
Adjusting the telescope to track Jupiter gave me some problems due to the vibrations at each adjustment. The vibrations also gave issues when I tried to capture video using my mobile phone. I’m going to take the telescope to the local moonwatch events (pdf) at the end of the month to get some advice on how to set up the telescope to minimise vibration.
I tweeted about the experience this morning and mentioned seeing a meteor. Drew Thomson reminded me that the annual Orionid shower had started a couple of nights ago, with peak activity next Wednesday (21st October), so it’s possible I also caught an early Orionid while I was out. The cool thing about the Orionids is that they are caused by the Earth passing through the debris left by Halley’s Comet, so you are actually watching little fragments of the comet each time you observe a meteor – much easier than waiting for another 52 years!
Although they are nothing like the photos posted earlier today by Catherine Baker, I thought I would share my attempt at capturing my telescope view of Jupiter with a mobile phone. I’m afraid it only picked up the planet itself, no moons.
At the start of this year, my school was lucky to be awarded one of 1000 free telescopes by the Society for Popular Astonomy. The telescopes for schools competition was designed to mark the International Year of Astronomy 2009, which celebrates Galileo first lifting a telescope upwards to view the night sky.
The telescope did not arrive at my school until April, by which time the night sky was becoming quite light. So, although the telescope was assembled, it has sat in a corner of my classroom for the past 6 months. Now that the dark evenings have returned, I felt it was time to try out the telescope.
I took it home for the October holidays and have been waiting for a rain-free day to set it up outside. Today was the first day with suitable weather and I set the telescope up in my front garden to align the finder scope as best as I could. If the sky remains clear, I am planning to go out with the telescope tonight to have a look at Jupiter and the other few objects whose name I know.
I used my mobile phone to record the setting up process. The video below isn’t great quality but I think it manages conveys some of the steps involved in aligning the telescope.
It’s not often that I am able to take part in the fantastic CPD opportunities that “the powers that be” in the deep south organise for teachers. Fortunately, it’s the October holidays up here so I was able to spend Tuesday afternoon in a flashmeeting listening to Greg Whitby speak with a group of teachers at LTS.
So who is Greg Whitby?
He is the Executive Director of Schools and leads a system of approximately 80 Catholic schools serving the Catholic community of greater Western Sydney.
In 2007, he was named the most innovative educator in Australia by the Bulletin Magazine in its annual SMART 100 awards.
He was awarded an ACEL Presidential Citation for his contribution to Australian education.
Billed as Gregmeet, the event was a chance for the Scottish education community to hear his thoughts on where learning & teaching has to be in the 21st century.
His main points were;
lack of relevance has resulted in most young people disengaging from education
realising that the idea of personalised learning represents learners having a deeper & continuous learning rather than an individual education programme
de-privatising of teacher practice: teachers can’t (and shouldn’t) work in isolation
the power of technology to release us from the education timetable that is essentially set in stone at the time of our conception
Greg got his final point across with an equation
who learns what with who where & when
= anywhere, anytime, anything, any device - time table
and suggested that the Scottish education establishment is moving in this direction with the rolling out of Glow across the 32 local authorities.
His point is valid. Why is it that we still create a situation where learning can only take place in a classroom, with a teacher, during the day? In moving to an informal, anytime learning environment, pupils can learn when they are ready to do so. Greg calls this “just in time” learning.
I found myself agreeing with his view that the laptop has lost its original impact in the classroom. So often, technology in the home is far ahead of the facilities we can provide in schools. Greg advocates switching to more flexible technology in the form of mobile phones, pointing out their accessibility, flexibility and cost advantages. While this is a move that is actively resisted in many schools, Greg’s message is that we must learn from research and this shows that handheld devices bring enormous educational benefits.
Greg didn’t use slides but there is a video of the event’s flashmeeting here. Alternatively, I have attached the audio to this post so you can listen using the flash player below.
It’s not often that I am able to take part in the fantastic CPD opportunities that “the powers that be” in the deep south organise for teachers. Fortunately, it’s the October holidays up here so I was able to spend Tuesday afternoon in a flashmeeting listening to 