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Yesterday I spent the afternoon at BarCamp. This was the first BarCamp in Scotland. The idea is that everyone there should present a short session. There were lots of people speaking with the thread of ICT being common. The choice of who to go and see was a difficult one. My first port of call was Ian Stuart’s talk on ‘Yer givin’ the weans whit?’

Ian is a head of faculty at Islay High school. He spoke about a new initiative that Islay High School are about to embark on. This will involve giving every pupil a hand held computing device which will serve as a jotter and diary etc. I am looking forward to hearing how this initiative progresses. After his talk, Ian gave me a quick demonstration of what these devices will be like to use:

I asked Ian to draw me a yellow beetle! lol!

Next up was Katie Farrell.

Katie is a Computing Studies teacher. Following on from Ian’s talk, Katie spoke about the use of mobile phones in education and the potential benefits. She is currently working on the implementation of an initiative similar to Ian’s at Castle Brae High School in Edinburgh.

Following on from Katie, Robert Jones and John Johnston talked about ScotEduBlogs.org.uk

Robert is a fellow Glow mentor with East Lothian Council and John is a Primary Teacher in Glasgow. They have been collaborating online to develop the ScotEdublogs.org. This initiative involves the aggregation of all the education based blogs (etc) in Scotland. They spoke about the background of the initiative and a little bit about the techo-geek side of things. For an initiative that is so well developed, I was surprised to hear that this was the first time that John and Robert had actually met in person!

My next stop was with David Colarusso. David is a Teacher of Physics at Broughton High school. He is currently on an exchange from the States. David spoke about the use of ‘filming in Physics’. I found this very interesting as I am currently working on something similar with my own council, East Lothian.

After having a quick bite to eat, I went on to watch Alan Coady’s talk on ‘Music In Space’.

Alan is a Guitar Instructor for East Lothian Council. With a brother and a father who are both passionate guitar players, I was really looking forward to Alan’s talk. He showed us the vast online library of midi files that he has created and uploaded for pupil access. He also talked us through the various levels of guitar tutoring and the kind of practice that pupils would do at home using the materials that he has uploaded.

Finally, there was me. No guesses for what I was talking about. Though if you want a copy of the PowerPoint I used, you can click here. (It was designed for a staff in-service; hence not every slide was used yesterday)

There was a lot to see yesterday and just not enough time. I would like to say a huge thank you to the event’s sponsors, Chinwag. Your hospitality at Edinburgh University’s Teviot Union was greatly appreciated last night! Also, a big Well done must go to Ewan and others for arranging and coordinating this successful event.

You can catch further details of the event over on the BarCamp wiki.