Have at last had time to (begin to) reflect on Teachmeet Falkirk, as the following two evenings were taken up with Parents Nights… nice!
For an unconference, there is still a heck of a lot of behind the scenes work and preparation to do, with @mvass bearing the brunt of that (although she did have a team of able and willing supporters)!
I think (for any teachmeet) the venue is important. We wanted somewhere away from school, which we got, but maybe for some, it was to far away from anything else! The building offered great flexibility, with space for break out plus having dinner onsite just meant for easy transition. The venue was ideal for locals, as it is used for other CPD events by the council. Perhaps it wasn’t the best for those coming from outwith, but is that so important?
Timing is also important. Part of me felt the 5 for 6 was a bit too late, as it was Falkirk inservice, so some folk were hanging about from 3 or 4. For those outwith the region, the M80 etc at peak time is a nightmare, so maybe a later start would have been better, but then the later finish for TeachEat is not so attractive.
Many folk have been discussing the future or evolution of TeachMeet and it is very interesting to see many local spin offs being planned and organised, like those in East Lothian and Perth. This is a really positive happening if the net is to be cast wider. Otherwise you can imagine it will just be a core of people returning, again and again. Not that this is a negative thing, perhaps it is important for the key players (?) to meet and be refuelled, before departing again to their regions, so a bigger event at, say the SLF, could still be important in keeping the TeachMeet snowball rolling.
The amount of kit on show in Falkirk was quite frightening! Is this attractive to the newbie? Is it more of a turnoff? Many of the ideas were ICT based, most Web based. Perhaps the CfE based upcoming TeachMeets will present a broader range of ideas? For those not too technically skilled, it maybe a bit overdone, though through the wiki and twitter etc, the message is spread to those who have some strength in ict. Perhaps there is a place for a lowtech TeachMeet? (would you still use twitter and the wiki to spread the word?)!
Just like the Co-op, local could be the way forward for TeachMeet. Obviously, the bulk of the workload would fall on key players, but isn’t that always the way? With a strong local support, future events may become easier to organise, perhaps simpler also.
Some amount of rambling. Any amount of sense?
Hello from down the valley.
Good post, you guys did the vast majority of organising, I just added TMfalkirk to the Teachmeet wiki !
You are right about the ICT nature but there was a lot of interest/chat at breaks. The theory, in the Brainpop video, is that TM lurkers spread the word back at their school etc.
There certainly seems to be lots of TMs rolling out.
Nick
Thanks, Nick, for getting the ball rolling by setting up the wiki in the first place!
It was a great TM and was worth all the organisation. There was a fantastic amount of help from others all the way up to 2 minutes before the event.
There was some work involved sourcing and communicating with sponsors. Once the venue was decided upon by the majority of our ‘wee committee’, I went along with Cassie on a number of ocassions to sort out everything on that front …. and there were a fair amount of emails fired back and forth, too!
I think you’re right, Rich, about the ‘having to sign up on a wiki’ barrier.
A lot of the work involved actually reaching the local folk. None of them signed up via the wiki themselves. Permission was granted to send out blanket emails on a few ocassions to targeted individuals – and of course the had to reply to someone – and someone had to put their name on 🙂
I think that a a lot of the work was the spontaneous ‘next job has just arisen and needs dealt with now!’ scenario.
Sooo ….. it was a case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know until it arises’ and that makes it difficult to delegate tasks.
Gosh – feel another blog post coming on 🙂