2010 – Blogging the World Cup

Posted by Peter Ford in UncategorizedDec 31st, 2010 | no responses

Blog the World Cup (BTWC) was a project that took place during the football World Cup in the summer of 2010. John Sutton’s idea was of a collaborative World Cup site with schools ‘adopting’ a competing nation and developing a blog around that country’s performance in the tournament, as well as other aspects such as its geography, culture and sporting heritage. The World Cup would indeed present a great opportunity for teachers and learners to explore and the blogging medium in a purposeful and engaging context.

I recorded my initial post-tournament reflections shortly after the tournament but six months on, I am still struck by the relative ease – from initial idea to implementation – of setting up such a project, and by the enthusiasm with many of the teachers and students immersed themselves in the project in their own ways.
BTWC was also memorable because it was the first time I really had the opportunity to see Simon Widdowson (@xannov) and David Mitchell (@deputymitchell) in action – albeit virtually –  with their respective classes. They are both examples of the type who generate memorable learning ideas and use technology as a part of their toolkit to make them happen. You will generally find them talking about their pupils achievements rather than blowing their own trumpets.

More importantly, they are willing to share both the process and outcomes of their teaching and learning using technology. This attitude, exemplified in David Mitchell’s recent class interview of a professional reporter by real pupil – reporters using CoverItLive, offered interested onlookers a window into the process of the technology use, greatly increasing the chance of replicating and further developing it in one’s own context. Hopefully, in 2011 more teachers will consider how collaborative technologies might be used to give other educators a realtime window into the actual process of using technology for better learning – extending TeachMeet principles to real time insight into real classrooms.

Anyway, Blog the World Cup did little to harm Deputy Mitchell’s and Xannov’s careers.  The Deputy won an Innovative Teacher National Award for his BTWC achievements. Xannov’s went on to star in The Epic Citadel Project and will be treading the boards at the BETT Show with Sir Tim Rylands.
This project would not have been possible with out the initial inspiration and ongoing hard work of John Sutton. Working with John over the last six years to help schools and individuals exploit the potential of blogs and other technologies for better learning has genuinely been a pleasure. We are cooking up a number of new (free) project opportunities coming up in the New Year but I’ll leave John to tell you about those. He does it so much better than me.

As one of the unsung greats of the edublogging world I think John Sutton definitely deserves his name in lights!


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