I really like science

Mike Farmer:

For all this focus on ICT, blogging, podcasting, computers in the home etc etc I am really a scientist through and through.

It really grabs my attention when you read someone who clearly loves their subject and then writes about how ICT might enhance that subject’s aims. That is, for me, a higher order goal in the use of ICT, in contrast to merely tagging on a few ICT ‘bells and whistles’ to make a subject more palatable for a demanding audience in our schools.

Communicate.06 Conference

Scottish CILT’s 2006 Communicate.06 Conference was an exciting day of technology and teaching. One hundred foreign languages teachers and advisors came to build on their use of technology – whether to make links with partner schools, to inject new forms of creativity into the classroom, or to learn a new skill such as making a blog.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, presenting my keynote live from a blog instead of using PowerPoint. I created the posts in draft beforehand and chose which to publish in turn. Perish the thought – I actually had to think during my presentation It was a great way of modelling the versatility of blogging as a tool.

I’ll find it hard to present any other way now. I love the idea of people being able to comment straight on to your presentation slides posts, either at the time or later. It allows a conversation to start and continue after the conference is over.

Actually the most striking thing for me is the fact that the conference is not over. The Saturday session was just the beginning of the support that will see many projects spring to life and be supported by the workshop leaders over the next few months. So often good ideas heard at a conference drain away in the reality of a classroom full of students on the following Monday morning, like water being poured into sand.

However, the MFLE is a platform for folks to receive support and ask questions to ensure that the projects get off the ground and flourish. Furthermore all the proceedings were podcast so people who were not there in person can also take part in this ongoing unconference. Ewan McIntosh, who did a brilliant job organising and presenting, has written about the conference from his perspective.

I also got to meet John Johnston of Sandaig Otters fame. He demonstrated that welcome combination of the down-to-earth and inspiring when chatting to folks about blogging and podcasting. Lynne from Tobermory was cool in the blogging session as well. David Muir whose blog I have enjoyed reading over the last months was also there and won a fiver for a blurry photo

Colwick Park

I had a very interesting morning with Charlie, one of the students with whom I regularly work. He walked me through the intricacies of bluetooth on my new phone, beaming a photo that he took with his phone’s camera to mine. He was a good teacher! We then sent it to my Flickr account and it was automatically posted to this blog. The photo forms part of our River Trent project that we are putting together. The photo shows a view over Colwick Lake which is situated near Nottingham’s racecourse.

Authentic Agnoiology

Chris Ashley summed up Lloyd’s edublogging back in 2001.

If each of us is a little blog disk jockey daily programming our own content for those who come across it to read, then Lloyd is the Master DJ, spinning and scratching several diverse tables at once, all the while encouraging others to spin, pointing to the spinning, finding threads among the spinning many, spinning those spins into his own to reflect back out to the community and be used as new riffs. For free. Because it’s a good thing to do. That’s radical. Quiet, unassuming, all action.

Take a trip outside of the edublogging echo-chamber and read the whole of Lloyd’s recent post to get a taste of some of the deep thinking and learning that goes on in his world and in that of his (former) students. Better still, spend a few hours digging around. It’ll do you good. Find a gem there and post about it. It’ll do the edublogosphere good! Quite extraordinary weblogging and commentary.

Once in a rare while, somebody writes something that makes me want to just quote it full, never mind how it feels redundant; sometimes it’s not enough to just quote a bit, and then link. I do have a point to make, in posting something like this; see my commentary, following.

Have I mentioned that Lloyd has been doing this sort of stuff everyday since 2000.