foolfillment: the blog

This time last year I was getting excited about going to the Scottish Learning Festival, this year I’m not sure yet if I will be going. I had expected not to be but things have changed slightly and I might be heading up for the Thursday at least. It’s still up in the air at the moment but I’ve booked into some seminars just in case I do get to go. In a similar fashion to last year and some other people in the Scottish Edubloggosphere (how I hate that word) are doing tonight, I am going to list my plans below:
Wednesday:
09:30 Making Connections: Taking a Global Approach to Teaching
10:30 Cabinet Secretary’s Address
12:30 Why: Understanding what we need to do differently to motivate students to learn
Thursday:
10:30 Motivating Every Learner
12:00 The shape of things to come: personalisation and collaboration in education
14:00 Opportunities for Embedding Enterprise Skills for Life and Work

And, of course, if I do make it to Glasgow I will definitely be heading to TeachMeet08* on Wednesday evening. If I do make it along I’ll be adding myself to the list of speakers - possibly just the 2 minute nano-presentations - to talk about goodness only knows what

If I do end up going I’ll have to miss a few classes, which I had really hoped not to do so early in to my time at my new school, but at the same time I’m really hoping I’ll get to go.

* Yes, this does mean I’m not putting on a small scale version in the Borders on the same night. BUT, I am still hopeful of getting something sorted out in the not so distant future.

I’ve been toying with this idea for a few weeks, but I’d not done anything about it while I was offline. Now I am finally getting into gear.

I would like there to be a TeachMeet in the Scottish Borders sometime, mainly for selfish reasons as I do not think I’ll be able to make it to the Scottish Learning Festival this year. I realised that unless I (un)organise it then it is unlikely to happen so here I am asking you for your help.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be a fair few people in the Borders and surrounding areas who will also not be able to make it to SLF this year, but I don’t know how many though, and crucially I do not know how many people there are who would consider getting involved as well as just turning up.

If I go ahead and try to sort something out I will need help - I don’t know where I would find a suitable venue, I don’t know my way around well enough yet! I was thinking somewhere in Galashiels.

I also have a few questions, I’ve put together a short Google form which you can answer, or of course you can leave comments here on the blog.

My big question though is this - one option is to have it running on the same night as the event in Glasgow, with a possible link up. How do people feel about this? My own personal feeling is that it would be great for the people who wanted to get to Glasgow but can’t, I also think that it might be good to encourage new people along if it were mostly ‘locals’ - but the risk is nobody comes… What do you think?