The TeachMeet at the BETT show is always a great event, last year I even skipped the show entirely and dashed down from Birmingham on the train after school just to make it. This year was no exception, with a wide range of presentations about some inspiring stories of learning. It was also a great chance to meet up with people I mainly share ideas online, many of whom have become friends over the past two years which I have been involved in the TeachMeet and Twitter communities.
This year I talked about the work I have been doing to connect the trainee teachers I work with with the real world of the profession, and to encourage them to begin sharing their learning online for both students and qualified teachers alike to learn from.
I was very excited to see Emma Taylorson and Amy Parkin, two students from our BEd course, presenting on their use of blogging and programming with primary school children; something very topical judging from the response to Michael Gove’s speech at the opening of the BETT show. These two may be only at the start of their careers, but as well as learning themselves they are doing things that other established teachers could learn from, and sharing it so that they can.
I believe that it is vital that teachers such as them continue to share and continue to learn, well beyond the four years of their ‘official’ training. Only if we have people with that mindset leading the learning of children will we achieve the change that many are starting to say is so needed.
As I explain in the talk below, I think the lines between ‘professional’ and ‘student’, between ‘expert’ and ‘learner’ need to become much more blurred if we are going to move on both the profession, and it’s initial training.
Please take a look at the blogs from student teachers at blogs.plymuniprimary.com. If you learn something, or think they could learn something from you, then leave a comment.
Many other presentations from the TeachMeet were posted on my liveblog, which are collected together here.
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