Yes, I am still alive and well but I haven't really been motivated to post lately. I think that this year I have been just as busy as I have been before, but a lot more contented with the way things are going and I tended to use this as a way of venting more than anything. So with nothing to vent about I have been relatively uninspired. But not so anymore. Saturday I went to the ICTEV Conference. I presented at two of the sessions, the first with Lynn Davie on Digital Portfolios and the second with Di Morwood on the Year 9 BYTES program and our Digital Portfolio program. Whilst these were affirming experiences (including seeing filmed footage of myself for the first time in front of 30 people which was actually quite mortifying) the real motivation and excitement for me in the day came from going to one of the other presentations. It was a presentation on Digital Storytelling that really inspired my - digital storytelling has been something we have been dabbling in with the year 9s in their digital portfolios but it is not something that we think we are doing very well. This session gave me not only the inspiration to continue (and also to try and develop a similar activity for the Year 7s) but it also gave me some of the know-how by including a copy of the booklet they give their students in order to get them properly focussed on the task. Another presentation I went to was on a particular school and their use of technology and was really interesting. Whilst some of the schools uses of technology were really good, there were other technologies that they had not taken on board and were quite cynical about which I found interesting. He also talked about VCAL IT which sounded really interesting. I reckon if we ran it at our school there really would be a lot of interest. It is really great to go to these sessions and come out inspired. Lots of the things that were presented were really practical and had been successfully incorporated into the curriculum at the school that were presenting so you know that it is tried and tested.
In fact something I have been doing a lot of lately is presenting at, and attending conferences and it is really through conferences and PD days that you get some of the most valuable inspiration.
