Chris Stevendale

Today was the final day of the Support for Learning Training Week in East Lothian. The events that I managed to attend were all excellent and the added bonus of the time there, was the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues. You cannot put a cost on the benefit of the rare opportunity to share ideas and talk through issues together. My blog had a short ‘moment of fame’ at one of the sessions and so I hope that I will have even more ‘followers’ when I eventually write up the events in Cape Town.

Quite a large part of my preparation this week, has been based around the presentation on Musselburgh Grammar that I have to take with me. We are asked to take both paper-based work and also a presentation on disk to leave at schools who have the technology to use this and to give to the education officials over there. This turned out to be a much more time consuming job than I had envisaged, but it was most enjoyable nevertheless. I had some pupils help me to either take photographs for inclusion, or assist me to choose the best views. I then spent ages putting everything together with text on to a Power Point presentation. Originally I had decided to have the colours of the St. Andrew’s Cross in the background. I then hit upon the idea of having a thistle instead– an idea well beyond my limited capabilities. However, the thistle now graces my work (no small thanks to Graham Forrest – ‘resident expert’ across the corridor from me at work). I have also prepared a resume' of the Musselburgh area with more photographs and some brief information. This should help to put the school into context a little bit.

Talking of photographs, I will have to look to the other 'resident expert' at school - Brian, one of our lab. technicians to give me help in posting photographs on the blog. Perhaps I will experiment next week.