flairandsquare.com

On Friday September 28th, North Coast Institute of TAFE hosted Regional Event #4, for LearnScope NSW. (See the LearnScope Blog for some pic’s)

The focus was Youth and Social Networking in Education.

For the first part of the day, the presenters (and many attendees) came to us virtually via Adobe Connect. For the later part, the presenters were present at the event, it was intended that virtual attendees could watch and interact online.

This resulted in some interesting discussion at lunch time about both the content and the delivery method. Physical participants commented that they felt it was difficult to engage with the virtual presenters, and felt frustrated by being unable to log into the Connect room due to the wireless connection. These participants were able to engage with the presenters in the same room during the afternoon sessions, looking at the comments in the chat pod, the virtual participants seemed to feel some what cut-off.

Was this lack of preparation and time on my part?

Being my first attempt to coordinate such an event, I have learnt a lot about format (although international time zones dictate presentations to some extent), not to mention over committing myself.

On reflection, loading the afternoon presentations and hand-outs into the Adobe Connect Room would have enhanced the experience of the virtual attendees in the afternoon, but would the focus on the technology, the Adobe Connect room, have detracted from the event for the physical attendees? How can we make these event’s run smoother in the future? Are we ready? Technically, I would say we have a long way to go, but the learning from these experiences are good ones. How did the guest speakers feel, did it seem smooth to them? I wonder…

Guest Speakers

Guest Speaker #1 - Sue Waters

Our first Guest Speaker was Sue Waters, who invited her wonderful, international Social Network along. See her blog post. This was a very interactive and fun session. Dare I say chaotic?

Virtually, using Adobe Connect , Sue intended to lure physical participants to contribute to the discussion by using chocolate (what is it with Sue and Chocolate?). Sue led the discussion around the positives and negatives of Social Networking quite successfully at first, but after a while the participants became wild with sugar racing through their bodies and it became difficult for them to focus.

It was an interesting session and lots to be learnt from both the content and the delivery. As usual, Sue’s happy and bright personality made the session fun and engaging.

My questions are;

• Was it too much to be Social Networking at the same time, sending our questions out via our Twitter networks?
• Is there only a small percentage of us that actually mutli-task like this? Or is this what it’s really like out there for our students?
• Do we need to learn and teach this skill?

I am looking forward to Sue’s comments on the session. Until then, a big thanks to Sue for her time and chocolate, I have since put on 5 kilo’s!!

Guest Speakers #2 - Alex Hayes and Jacinta Gascoigne

A discussion into the use (and abuse) of social networking technology in education not restricted to VET, inclusive of all community based settings, flexible and home schooling. Jacinta presented to people attending both virtually and physically via Adobe Connect while Alex Hayes manned the chat pod, asking and answering some interesting questions.

Thanks to you both for sharing your thoughts.

Afternoon Sessions

Kate Jones presented some excellent information on interactive, engaging resources that are readily available to engage younger learners. No need to create engaging material from scratch, check out some of these sites;

• ABC Radio & TV Podcasts
• Wikipedia Spoken Articles
• Project Gutenberg, Audio Books
• Australian Screen - Downloadable clips from Australian films, documentaries, historical footage and TV shows.
• Film Australia - Download interactive digital learning material. Lesson worksheets and teacher notes also available.
• Teachertube - Safe videos for school
• Slideshare - Download and share PowerPoint presentations online. Find presentations on any subject
• TaLe - Teaching and Learning exchange. Resources for teachers, parents and community. It’s worth delving deeply into this site.

Thanks Kate for your generosity.
Regan Harding inspired us with her Gen X & Y ‘treasures within’ presentation, provoking discussion about the exploration of personal identity and learning and how electronic mediums can provide young people with chances to be seen and be heard.

Regan graciously shared her journey and Youth at Risk projects with us. She shared what has worked for her and what might work……

• Blurring Worlds Might Have Us Speaking Clearly - The Sydney Morning Herald
• It’s Crunch Time - Raising Youth Engagement and Attainment
• We Reckon - Byron Bay Community Campus Youth Blog

I am hoping that Regan will grace this blog with a guest post on this topic very soon.

Kristin Teece from New England joined us at the end of the day to discuss Social Networking, engaging the Disengaged… flexible and real learning… literacy and numeracy skills, IT skills, self development and creativity… Building positive educational experiences and relationships on the social networks (specifically myspace) and what to be aware of in a professional educational settings.

Discussions over a beer…

One of the most interesting conversations of the day was about the communication methods, language and perceptions of youth (Gen X & Y). How do they communicate with peers, bosses and teachers? What they expect, what they ‘don’t get’, what their elders ‘don’t get’. Mark Keevers, our official Gen X person had some great points to share and it was over a beer, at the Nautilus bar, at the end of the day, that this discussion got really interesting. The discussion was recorded by Padmini Sampathkumar on an mp3 player. I am hoping to get some clips of this discussion to share with you here. So thanks Padmini for recording that one.

Thank you

Thanks to all our guest speakers and attendees for their hard work and contributions for the day. A special thanks to Luke Hodges from the AFLF who was our technical expert and support guru for the day. You are a legend!

Elsewhere on that day…

Speaking of Social Networking, blogging fits into this category. Interestingly, in Brisbane on the same day, there was an Australian Blogging Conference at QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct.

Tama Leaver writes some great notes on the conference on his blog - “Reflections on the Australian Blogging Conference and Blogging in Education“. This is really worth a read, there are some great examples as well.

Kate Davis, a Gold Coast Librarian, also took some notes on “Building a Better Blog” at the event.