Mr W’s Blogging Great Thing

With only a few days to go, the preparations for this year’s Scottish Learning Festival are in place… and after a serious flurry of activity on the part of David Noble and others, TeachMeet08 (9th Edition) not only has a home, it also has the extras it needs to work.

The Scottish Learning Festival is (probably) one of the finest National Education Conferences in the world. It’s big enough to attract some of the finest keynote speakers in the world, and yet small enough to be friendly. As an added bonus, it has never lost sight of the fact that the real focus for an education conference should be improving education for the pupils. You only have to wander round the various exhibits and live demos of pupils and their works to realise how important the learners’ experiences are to the ethos of the SLF. If you’re going, make sure you take the time to visit the Scottish Education Village, and this year, there’s a new kid on the block that promises to be well worth dropping into, the Education Showcase. This will see numerous leading practitioners sharing some of the really great things they’re doing with the hopes that you will be inspired to try something new in your classroom.

If this is going to be your first visit to the SLF, then you might want to take a quick look at my Top Ten Tips for getting the most out of the festival. I’ve had plenty of feedback from people who found them useful.

Louis's going to TeachMeet!

The other date for your diary this week is, of course, TeachMeet08. TeachMeets are the ‘fringe’ for lack of a better word. Lots of supremely enthusiastic educators talking about real things they’ve done in the classroom or highlighting really cool tools or simply networking and making some fantastic contacts: I suppose it’s a bit like a cross-curricular speed-dating service…

So, what are you looking forward to at the SLF? Feel free to post your comments here, and if you see me, come and say hello!

Photo Credit: Louis @ TeachMeet by Digital Katie!