Betchaboy

Me and Amanda Signal, originally uploaded by Betchaboy.

Came across this photo on flickr today, via Chris Betchers aptly titled folder 'So you are real!'. One of the great things about conferences is being able to meet up with people I have met through the blogosphere. 2 people I had the chance to meet who had ventured over from Aussie to ULearn this year was Lilylauren and Betchaboy. It's such fun to try and track people down using only a tiny avatar to guide you. Luckily with Chris we had spoken through the OZ/NZ Educators meetings and through his work with his Interactive Whiteboard Revolution book. Head along and check out the ning and his blog - he's a wealth of knowledge!

ULearn '09 - Breakout 7: Visual Language

Breakout 7 (or the graveyard shift) was my Visual Language workshop. During this workshop we covered a large range of ideas. From basic digital photography skills, elements and angles. Through to Creative Commons, practical websites for classroom use and ideas to help the 1 camera classroom work.

The largest part of this presentation shared some ways visual language can be developed/integrated in the classroom and used as part of an effective oral and/or written language programme. The major focus looked at the use of digital photography - both student and web based images. But also shared forward steps with looking at silent animations such as Kiwi or Carried Away.

It was great to see the people involved sharing their ideas and participating in the group/peer activities to share their thoughts - we had some enthusiastic people! We also had a few people who shared things that had worked well for them in the class - this was great for a collaborative feel to the breakout!

Head over to my wiki - Click on Presentations and then ULearn '09 and the Through The Lens title to see the presentation. (Or click on any of the links above!)

ULearn 09 - Breakout 6a: Digikids

This breakout - Digikids, looked at the concept of having a group of keen kids take part once a week in a collaborative way - to learn new tips, tricks and tools that they can take back to their class, teachers and families!

I looked at the initial set up in 2008 through to this year. The changes that have been made, the positives and the negatives. Things that have worked and things that haven't!

Head over to my wiki - Click on Presentations and then ULearn '09 and the Digikids title to see the presentation. (Or click on any of the links above!)

ULearn '09 Reflection...

ULearn is a fantastic conference to go to... 1750 delegates from all over NZ, with a growing contingent from overseas who both present and attend. A huge variety of workshops, spotlights and keynotes to satisfy nearly every e-learning enthusiast!! It's definetly one conference to plan for in your diary each year!

Once again it has been and gone for another year. As I said earlier, this year I didn't get to attend any breakouts unfortunately but went down to hang out at the bloggers cafe with Dragon09 (my very first blogger/twitter friend!!) and see some of the amazing twitter and blogging people I get to collaborate with, learn from and talk to on a daily basis. My friend from Christchurch who attended ULearn for the first time was so amazed by the friendly atmosphere that greeted her from the bloggers cafe. She was most amazed at the fact I had met all these bubbly people through twitter and blogging... I am extremely lucky for the people who I am surrounded by! I was stoked to have the chance to meet Lilylauren and Chris Betcher for the first time, who were over from Australia, but unfortunately missed Helen!

This year I presented 2 sessions - I will post the presentations up in seperate posts. After a long haul of putting my presentations together and touching them up - I was stoked to present them in breakouts 6 and 7 to 2 groups of keen and interested teachers. A big thanks to those teachers in the graveyard Breakout 7 shift who participated in the session with enthusiasm. I was even more excited on reading the feedback forms and getting an overwhelming positive response to my sessions. I liked that fact that many of them thought that the workshops and content were "realistic" and "engaging" among many other adjectives within the written comments! The number scale is great, but the written feedback, whether postive or negative is worthwhile as I learn much more from this! It does make the hard work worth it, to know that your audience is leaving enthused, keen and with some new ideas! It was interesting to see how many people talked about the fact I seemed so passionate about what I was talking about - this I was very happy with!

One thing I was extremely careful with was trying to work closely to what I had placed as my abstract for the workshops. When I sent in my proposals these were to be 2 new workshops that I hadn't presented on, but had a HUGE passion and interest in. So I made sure that I worked closely to what I had written. Many people have previously complained of attending workshops that didn't match their abstracts - this is a huge disappointment for these people.

I think I am becoming more confident and relaxed with my presenting and my presentation style. I enjoy working with the keen groups of teachers who have chosen to attend the sessions. It was good to see also, that I sparked some teachers into sharing ideas and tools that they have used in the classroom and were willing to share these via my presentation wiki page with others from the session - great collaboration!! I think that the more I present and work in front of adults the more fluid I will become in the way I present and interact with my audience. I know this time around, I felt I was a lot more relaxed than I have been in other years. It's really not that long ago the idea of talking in front of a group of adults was an absolute no go for me!! But that being said, I look forward to having the chance to share with others in the future!

Image of the ULearn09 stands used under CC: coreednz

ULearn '09

2009 - Christchurch... back to ULearn for another year. Unfortunately not here for the breakouts this time around, just to present and to catch up with some of the amazing people who I get to digitally work with on a daily basis, year round.

Will be collecting links from around the place and different people. You can check them out here!