There are going to be lots of people writing up their experiences of #TMHants, held last night in Southhampton.
Ian Addison and Gideon Williams did an incredible job of pulling this event together – but it was really the attendees that made it so special.
Probably the most interesting thing about last night was that for 95% of the attendees this was their first Teachmeet! And they loved it! There was loads of passion, excitement and genuine gasps as inspiration was shared.
So rather than going on about the presentations, I want to share some of the random conversations that I had – for a mix of selfish and more altruistic reasons! Sorry not to include everything but this is only to give a flavour of the power of the ‘unconference’ model.
I finally got to meet Charlie Dean – who was sporting a very rare VIB t-shirt – and who was very kind about BrainPOP UK. It was great to hear how much her class enjoy the movies. More than that, she introduced me to some of the teachers at her school, who were also great. For example…
I had a great talk with the deputy head at her school about the power of teachmeets, the problems with ‘normal’ CPD, and the barriers of ICT. I did not get her name but she was super keen to come along to TMFishbowl on the 17th June, partly because of the success of #TMHants .
After watching Jon Audain’s fantastic presentations, I caught up with him and Emma Goto, and we swapped iPhone apps, early years sites and realised that we were all Tiggers!
Finally, Kristian Still came to find me at the end of the event to say some very nice things about BrainPOP UK – a perfect end to the night. Kristian said (and I’m paraphrasing here – based on my rosy memory of his words!) that he was hugely impressed with BrainPOP UK’s commitment to Teachmeets, to having authentic conversations with teachers and kids, and that we had brought a great resource to schools. I almost fell over with gratitude, because that it exactly what we set out to do, and here was a fantastic practitioner in a normal school reflecting that back to us.
We then went on to discuss about how his Digital Leaders, kids trained to be expert in edtech, might work with BrainPOP UK to share some learning…another great unexpected outcome from this fantastic event!
Finally, as I drove home up the A34, I kept replaying the evening in my mind and found it rich in ideas, practical activities and relationships with people that I want to continue.
Tired as I was (and am), I went to sleep (once I was in my bed, not while driving) H A P P Y.
Nice.
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:35 pm
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May 22nd, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Many thanks for this and all your support. Great to meet you at the event and it is really pleasing to read comments from an “outsider” so to speak. See you at the next one.
May 24th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Many thanks Gideon. It seemed like a huge success and that comes down to the hard work of the organisers.