Speed Geeking for quick tastes, leading to a good appetite....

It worked really well. With over 60 participants, the Technology 4 Learning (T4L) session last Saturday seemed to be a great success.
An early breakfast followed by an excellent Keynote from Mariam Mathews (via Blackboard Collaborate) got the event rolling.
Mariam took us through the developments in technology in schools and gave us three trends:

1. Devices - choice is growing, BYO or school provided?
2. Pedagogical innovations - Flipping, student response systems (eg Twitter), blended learning, challenges in moving from bricks-and-mortar.
3. Social Networking in the classroom.

Good session, we learned that we should have shown the videos locally and given our staff some Collaborate training.
The  Speed Geeking session was fun. We had 12 stations with a range of technology on show - four minutes at a time for groups to have a taste:

1. (Kidspiration) Inspiration 

2. Scratch Programming

3. Facebook or Fakebook in the classroom

4. Simple Booklets

5. Gaming

6. Animation / iMovie

7. Robots

8. SketchUp

9. iPads

10. iPod Touch Apps

11. VoiceThread

12. Digital Portfolios

The student presenters were great! Four minutes each presentation proved really too short and, as usual, teachers have their own ideas about which groups they should be in. But it was enough to get an idea so as to return in the later digital playground sessions.
Congratulations to Jennifer Garcia and Judith Shorrocks for all the organising - excellent!