Getting there on Saturday was exciting as I'd never been to "the facility" before, and didn't know much either, but it certainly sounded exciting. Quantum Victoria is a facility, associated with La Trobe University (proud alumni here), that aims to engage students in science and maths by looking at real world problems.
Upon getting there around 1:55, it wasn't long until some familiar faces and Twitter names began appearing before my eyes. For those that I had met before, it was good to catch up and discuss what we were hoping to see during the course of the arvo, and for the Twitterers that I had only met their avatars, it was great to finally put a name and voice to the Twitter name. Yes, Ziad (@ramblingteacher), Brette (@brettelockyer) and Celia (@ccoffa) I'm talking about you guys!
As we shuffled into the mini-lecture theatre, the excitement started to grow...or was that just the sweets (generously provided) starting to get to us?
So where to begin the reflections...at the start I suppose:
- @adriancamm introduced and gave a brief overview (before his tour later on) of the drive behind QuantumVic and let those who were new to the TeachMeet format know how the afternoon would progress.
- @melcashen gave the audience an interesting insight into her travels to Rwanda
- She spoke of the teachers striving to make their communities a better place through education and the incredible hardship experienced
- One of my tweets during her talk I think summed it up my thoughts (and those of everyone in the room):
@melcashen #TMMelb courageous teachers working with very few resources in Rwanda yet most of us complain when WiFi isn't working- @brettelockyer caused the audience a bit of a welcome stir...and admittedly it was something I certainly didn't expect when coming to TeachMeet. I commend her on her courage and enthusiasm with regards to her recount/fable/allegory regarding laptop trolleys, teachers, and the procedures around these.
- Ziad Baroudi (@ramblingteacher) & Steven Francis (@notontwitter) then gave a great tour through some of the Scratch resources that they use in their Maths classes @ Avila College.
- I'm looking forward to using some of these in the very near future and will provide updates when I have some stories to tell!
Unfortunately that's all for this afternoon...reports are calling!
And I'm back, now where was I...
And I'm back, now where was I...
- @taniatorikova gave us a rundown of how she has utilised Facebook groups/pages to her advantage in her classes
- Having already investigated & seen how this can be done, it was great to see how it had been implemented and managed by a peer
- @handsdown showed everybody how they could implement a Green Screen - $14.95 from Spotlight (if anyone's interested)
- If I ever moved to a school that didn't have a Green Room (MacKillop has a green room and functional recording booth), this would be awesome! I wouldn't have to buy that expensive ChromaKey paint! #winning!
- @adriancamm made my day when he talked about how Portal/Portal 2 could be implemented into the classroom to give students a "real" look at physics at work....
- I'm now investigating this for our science faculty
- Plus...it's now got me back playing Portal...bad time of year to start up again but ah well
- @elearnjones demonstrated the power of Evernote, a powerful cloud file sharing tool that allows you to access your documents on any device...very cool way to having students submit work continuously
- Looking forward to implementing this at some stage in the near future...again I'll keep you updated!
- @judithway promoted the @readerscup and spoke of it's value to students today (sorry for the original omission!)
- @mr_lo_nigro was going to talk about Streaming Software on the iPad, but then decided to change over to the Super Mario Level Editor and how it has engaged his kids
- Teaching a Video Gaming class last year and about to embark on the process again next semester, it's looking like a very handy tool!
- @adriancamm was a busy bloke on Saturday, as he then showed us around Quantum Victoria...and may I say...everyone was impressed.
- They have a number of programs tailored to a range of ages/year levels that cover topics in maths and science that we would never ever think to get across to our students.
- The drive behind the facility is to empower students with the ability to think about real world problems and design a solution using the available technologies.
- You'll have to check it out because they have some really cool programs over there that are accessible to a lot of kids. Most of them facilitated by some cool tech like 3D printers, unmanned drones and producing different applications for Xbox 360 Kinect & PS3's.
It was an awesome couple of hours, and well done to all the presenters. I'm hoping to run a PD session at my school in a similar format, as I think it's a great idea. 2 & 7 minutes isn't long enough for people to be overloaded with information, nor is it long enough to get bored! But it is long enough to spark questions and a drive to implement some of these tools into my own curriculum
Video highlights of the day can be seen after the jump...http://youtu.be/4gf_wqYGOoo
Until next time...
May the Tech Be With You
Jimmy V
May the Tech Be With You
Jimmy V