JDMcDsblog

Not long back from TeachMeet at the Science Centre. Not sure what I was expecting, as I had never been to one, and, on arriving I suddenly wasn’t quite sure why I had offered to speak, especially as other speakers had plenty more to say. Still, it was very stimulating, and I came away full of admiration for what people are doing, often on their own initiative. If my blogmap shows anything, it is the relatively piecemeal and spontaneous nature of innovative work in Scotand, with core areas like East Lothian and a kind of distance decay effect operating thereafter.(excuse the spatial analysis)
What I like is that the concept of TeachMeet is practioner-driven rather than “top down”; it’s the teachers and support staff doing the innovating, and driving the agenda, who are seeing how their practice fits on with Curriculum for Excellence and HGIOS. I’d be interested to know what HMIE think about what’s happening-do any inspectors blog, for example?

As newly appointed Depute Rector, I have been having very positive discussions with my colleagues at Hutchesons’ about how we can expand the collaborative aspects of our website and develop blogs and wikis. One of my younger colleagues runs the EcoSchool initiative, for instance, and she has just made up a blog to support the work of the pupils. She is an excellent photographer, too and she has put some great photos on Flickr. I also help with Young Enterprise-one of my sixth year team has made up a Bebo site to help launch their product, so there is definitely scope for social networking sites like Bebo, as Neil was saying.

I came away from this evening very optimistic-there is a lot of good work going on out there and it is important to celebrate this, and spead the word!!