Just as it reaches maturity as a national and international event, The Scottish Learning Festival: SETT (September 20-21) is also proving itself an incubator and propagator of cutting edge yet grassroots online learning.
Within minutes of delivering a world-class SETT 2006 keynote analysis of how the internet is changing our conceptions of knowledge and learning, US academic David Weinberger could be found sitting cross-legged, taking notes on his laptop, at the back of a fringe meeting of Scottish teachers as they shared their experiences of using blogging and free social, collaborative websites like Flickr, BubbleShare.com and JumpCut in their teaching. Unlike many other ICT gatherings it wasn't techie - just straightforward teaching and learning. And David Weinberger's presence was the ultimate compliment.Run by Ewan McIntosh (edu.blogs.com), new technologies research practitioner with Learning and Teaching Scotland, and sponsored by interactive whiteboard company Promethean, the TeachMeet06 event was strictly "by teachers for teachers", and that undoubtedly accounted for some of the buzz. The ideas and presentations accounted for the rest. That afternoon alone justified the trip to Scotland.
The line-up for what was a lively and humorous cross between professional development and a social event, included contributions from Jordanhill College's David Muir (using Flickr with students - edcomblog.blogspot.com), Sean and Kate Farrell (using Kids Connect and Second Life virtual environments with students in New York and Holland) and a mind-boggling demonstration of mediastage virtual characterisations from Immersive Education's John Griffiths. Ewan's mother, Christine McIntosh, until recently an English teacher, also shared her insights on blogging and assessment (http://blethers.blogspot.com/).
Of course there were plenty of mainstream SETT offerings. David Weinberger's on-stage predecessor, Scotland's education minister Peter Peacock, gave a typical politician's polished paean to Scottish education (in the top third of OECD countries) and Scottish teachers in particular (now free from being told what and how to teach) before highlighting the national broadband network and services, recently rebranded Glow. And visitors to the exhibition were given a preview of the portal on the Learning and Teaching Scotland and RM stands. The full implementation, including video-conferencing, will be available nationally by summer 2007.
The response from teachers was positive, although the more techno-aware pointed out that blogging is not yet available through the Microsoft SharePoint technology that underpins Glow (the next version, say Glow insiders, will solve that). Whatever Glow might not do – and teachers clearly thought that it does a lot – the emerging vanguard of ICT-confident teachers will very likely be setting it an exciting new agenda, one that also deserves a central place at the annual BETT Show in Olympia, London in January.
Videos of the SETT keynotes, and information about the event can be found at:
www.settshow.com
www.seanfarrell.co.uk
www.katefarrell.co.uk
www.immersiveeducation.com
www.bettshow.com
