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.

image of Greg by torres21

• Drew Burrett (Hermitage Academy) -- Using Glow in the Physics Classroom
• Michael Walker (Robert Gordon College) -- Ruben tube (see video below)
• Sinclair Mackenzie (Thurso High) -- iPod my Physics
• Iain Lawrie (George Watson’s College) - A cup of tea and a chocolate digestive (encouraging pupil engagement with Latent Heat)
• Bob Kibble (Moray House) - ’Just a moment, aren’t they simultaneous equations?’ Impress your maths colleagues with wooden beams
• Drew Burrett -- National Glow Group for Physics teachers
• Dave Spittal (Kinross High) -- things that can be achieved using cheap web cams in demonstrations
• Nick Hood (Glenwood High) - A proposal for “Mathematical Modelling in the new Higher”

We also had Andrew Brown joining us from a Glow Meet that Drew had set up and several people followed proceedings via a flashmeeting.  The flashmeeting was recorded, so you can click on that link to watch the event.  Dave Spittal captured the sessions on his camcorder, so an edited version may appear at some point in the future.  As Physics teachers know, it was compulsory to round a night like this off with a curry.  Thanks to Neil Winton for recommending the Manzil.

As promised, here is Michael’s video of the Ruben tube in action

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaju6MUYKac

Several teachmeet rules were thrown out the window, few stopped talking after 7 minutes and we took questions.  I have grabbed the audio of my own talk from the flashmeeting.  You can listen using the player below.  Be warned -- it’s longer than 7 minutes and it is a bit loud due to the headset microphone we used so you might want to turn the volume down if you are using headphones!