Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

Having had an extremely encouraging Friday morning, both from the point of view of the first tentative steps along the road towards creating an Alternative Curriculum provision at PLHS and with the Pre-Vocational strategy group meeting, I was full of enthusiasm for taking the plunge into the ‘wikisphere’! 

At our early morning meeting we had a great turnout from both staff members and other agencies; Angie Davie from the Pennypit, Karen Steedman from the Shed and Alan Bell and Frances Lamarra of the Integration Team.  The lure of free coffee and croissants at 7.30am had a power which astonished even me!  ‘Mental note’ most definitely taken, although I think it might be toast and tea this week, variety being the spice and all that.

We got through our agenda with some excellent input from all concerned, and once again I owe a major debt of gratitude to everyone, especially to the members of outside agencies who came along with open minds and some excellent ideas to take the notion forward. 

Friday afternoon saw me try to make sense of all the information we had gathered and create our alternative curriculum ‘wiki‘ space which I have managed to make a start on.  I was frustrated at being unable to satisfactorily represent a ‘Mind Genius’ mind map on the wiki because it was not a ‘jpeg’ or some other type of picture file.  That’s one I’ll have to work on. If anyone has any ideas then please let me know.  I’d also like to invite anyone reading this to please have a look and contribute any thoughts or ideas to our wiki pages.  There is a long way to go, especially in ironing out all the potential obstacles already identified and the more input from others the easier the process will be.

I had the privilege of playing the djembe with Waa Sylla at a multicultural event at St Margaret’s Academy in Livingston on Sunday.  What a great use for a school at the weekend, truly a ‘community’ event with the school at the centre, I was really impressed.