This just came through from the ‘Beeb‘.

One Laptop Per Child is upon us!

Photo Credit: BBC

I was reading a ‘tweet’ from Andrew Brown this morning so I thought I would quote him;

“So ‘yes we can’ became ‘yes we have’ - thank goodness America”.

Anyway here is an interesting article that popped up in my aggregator from the ‘Beeb’ this morning.

Another Scot in the Whitehouse!

Photo credit: Transplanted Mountaineer

The Knox Academy senior boy’s rugby team had been badgering me for ages. As Friday last week was not a CAT afternoon, I decided to venture down to Trinity High School to support the team. And I am very happy to say that I was not disappointed! 10-73 victory to Knox!

It was a good game- the lads played well, even when the rain set in. Here is to a great season!

A big ‘WOOT’! for Knox Academy

Can you name them all?

I thought I did quite well with only a couple requiring google-ing

This week I, along with a number of colleagues, ventured down to London to represent Learning and Teaching Scotland at the International Handheld Learning Conference 2008 . It was held at the Barbican Brewery.

• Ollie Bray (East Lothian)
• Ian Stuart (Argyll and Bute)
• Mark Pentleton (East Ayreshire)
• Derek Robertson (Learning and Teaching Scotland)
• Laurie O’Donnell (Learning and Teaching Scotland)
• Ewan McIntosh (formerly LTS, now Channel 4)
• Anna Rossvoll (Aberdeen)
• Andy Pendry (Learning and Teaching Scotland)
• Jim Scott (Perth and Kinross)
• Margaret Cassidy (Stirling)

In addition to our own seminars and sessions, here are some of my highlights from my notes:

• Andy Black from Becta- as ever talking about the use of ‘cool’ gadgets to enhance Teaching and Learning.
• Andrew Davis from Clunbury CofE School , Shropshire- talking about using the Nintendo DS, blogging and the ‘3 stars and a wish’ method.
• Nick Hughs from Redbridge, London- talking about using robots in the Primary sector- Sharing, talking, creating, ordering, using robots and ‘Go Robo’ software.
• Gavin Hawkins from Wolverhampton Local Authourity- talking about using ‘SynchronEyes’ at Stow Heath Junior School. During this project pupils and staff were given their own PDA devices. These devices were used throughout the curriculum. You can find out more about his project here on the Learning2go website and the Learning2go weblog here.

There were so many seminars on offer and a number of them clashed, however I really feel excited about the evolution of handheld learning; memory becoming cheaper, devices becoming lighter and smaller and the development of VLEs.

I would like to congratulate my colleagues for their superb presentations. It was great to see how far ahead we are in Scotland with these technologies; And a big well done to Derek for scooping up the ‘Special Achievment Award’  at the awards ceremony on Monday night- well deserved I say! I would also like to thank Graeme Brown-Martin (Conference Chairman) for organising the event and for his outstanding hospitality.

I am sure my colleagues will share a few thoughts with you on their own weblogs

*PS- if you are ever attending an event at the Barbican Brewery please note the following:

1. Get off at the Barbican Tube station.
2. Head straight across the road over the traffic lights and then follow the yellow line for 300 yards.
3. It should then be on your right

-Something that OB and I could have done with knowing on Monday morning as we walked about randomly (being a Geographer, he usually brings a compass!)   

Photo credit: stevewheeler7

The International Handheld Learning Conference 2008 takes place this week (13-15^th) at The Barbican in London. From East Lothian, both Ollie Bray and I have been asked to host spotlight sessions by Learning and Teaching Scotland. My session will be similar to the seminar that Alicia MacFarlane and I hosted at the Scottish Learning festival: 

 ‘Using the Sony PSP as a tool for learning in the Primary classroom‘.

Ollie’s session is on:

 ‘A young leader’s perspective - making games based learning work in the secondary school’.

A lot of really interesting stuff will be covered during the three days and I hope to be able to share a few thoughts on what see. It is great to see such a strong Scottish contingent.

If you are in London, give me a shout!

Many thanks to Lynne Lewis for blogging about this. If you fancy getting your hands on a free USB stick click on to memory4teachers.

The Mary Poppins Musical the musical is currently showing at the Edinburgh Playhouse. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending this super show along with 50 keen 3^rd year Drama students and my friends and colleagues John and Luke. This musical is one that I hadn’t seen before.

The story line is very similar to that of the film (with a little bit of licence added in at certain points). The songs were just as I remember- a definite feeling of nostalgia was had. I felt the acoustics of the Play House were pretty good in comparison to other musicals I have seen there, however this may largely be due to the fact that we were in the middle of the stalls (not the back). The scenery and props were super and scene changes were outstanding- so much so you hardly noticed them. One point to note is that the first half is quite long (1 hour and a half-ish). For young children this was just too long and towards the end of the first half there were a lot little ones exiting toilet bound.

I would say this musical is on a par with The Sound of Music  to which I also accompanied pupils. 

Mary Poppins- highly recommended- guarnteed to entertain children and adults!

Super-cala-fraja-listic-expe-ali-docious!!

In Scotland we have hosted a number of these un-conferences. These have been ably coordinated by Ewan McIntosh. The idea is that anyone can share cool ideas they have or great ideas they’ve trialled in their classrooms. All you need to do is sign up on the wiki.

The rules for TeachMeet are as follows:

• Micro-presentations are strictly seven minutes long, nano-presentations two minutes long.
• No PowerPoint allowed… unless… you’re doing 20 slides for 20 seconds each (pecha kucha style - pecha kucha article).
• Make sure that what you’re showing has actually been done in your classroom or a classroom of a colleague - this isn’t blue skies, this is right here, right now stuff.

The order in which people speak is determined by a random selecter

If you cannot make it to the festival it’s self, I would highly recommend coming along to the teachmeet. It will take place from 6-9pm in the Forth room within the SECC. Leith’s@SECC will be providing a buffet and refreshments in the room, courtesy of two of our sponsors.

To find out more click here.

See you tomorrow!