Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside

Last night’s TeachMeetBlackpool was tremendous (& not just because of the TeachMeet rock!) It was really great to meet up with some of the people I’ve spoken to on twitter face to face and there were some really inspired and inspiring presentations from great practical examples, like using flip cameras, twitter and cover-it-live  in the classroom to improve literacy and to Nicola Staple’s interactive and highly enjoyable music terminology session.

I also really enjoyed the ‘global’ presentations, with Jan Webb, Jack Sloan and John Sutton all sharing how they have used web 2.0 applications to connect their students both to each other and on a global scale – really inspirational stuff!

Connecting students and teachers was a recurring theme of the evening and what particularly stood out for me as the large number of attendees from the local community – Tom and James did a great job of taking TeachMeet beyond the twitterati. The final presentation of the night from Chris and Nigel at Palatine secondary school where they discussed how they have used futurelab’s learning spaces (or as they call them learning bases) to revolutionise the transition experience for pupils in the area was very thought-provoking. Their warm and sincere invitation for attendees to go and visit their school was indicative of the positive local links that were most certainly built throughout the night.

Things are certainly looking bright for the teachers and pupils of Blackpool (& beyond)!

Here’s the much talked about Colin with his guide to chroma key with Movie Maker!