Captain's Log (Always wanted to say that)

Well the first day is done. Had a very interesting time at Unleashing Your Creativity. We unleashed something . . . still not quite sure what it was though. Meet some very interesting people. Cheers to Dave, Ross, Helen, Blair, Glennys and the others.

We starting looking at a programme called subethaedit. It works like a real time chat programme you can download from Coding Monkeys. I'm not sure if it will run on Windows. Basically it lets you chat in real time and you can add to the group discussion at any point on the screen. I pasted a copy of one chat into this Blog further down. It works across an intranet or I suspect a LAN aswell. Not sure about across the internet, will check with Richard about these issues.

Just after we started Richard (Millwood) suggested we go next door and work on a more hands on session. We ended up making a Broadcast show that had both live and prerecorded items. Personally it was a large project and it it took all our time and energy to produce a 5 minute presentation. Not the way I would do it with children under 8. I think the idea is excellent but we teachers found that the technology had a tendency to fail us when we least needed it to. This can be the kiss of doom when presented to those late adoptors and when you are trying to inspire creativity in your class.

The basic structure of the groups and their jobs is worth remembering and I will try and drop Richard a line and ask for a list of the groups and their jobs. The session was rich in problem solving and communication challenges. I think the same could be done with VHS and some simple props like a desk or some other sort of Newsreaders table. This would give kids the ability to feel safe behind something the first time they tried. The focus could be on GOOD QUESTIONING and ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS. The audience could be another class of their peers or a junior buddy class - it could inform, entertain or carry a school wide message. (Just some things that come to mind).

I have already looked into catching up with people who can supply eWhiteboards and will look into this tommorrow.