4th Melbourne TeachMeet hosted by Adrian Camm at Quantum Victoria

Thank you so much to the organisers, to the presenters, to the participants and to Adrian Camm at Quantum Victoria for the very enjoyable 4th Victorian TeachMeet Melbourne yesterday afternoon. Thanks also to Tony Richards for the live streaming which you can now watch on the wiki. Thanks also to the people who captured the ideas and links to fantastic ways of learning and teaching on Twitter #tmmelb. And thanks to whoever made the awesome and very popular jelly and lemon slice – was it you, Robyne Luketic aka @handsdown?(please share the recipe).

I’ve attended Melbourne TeachMeets before but never presented because this is something I still shy away from. If you’re like me and don’t feel comfortable with public speaking, let me tell you that the 7 minutes is a nice little amount of time, and the TeachMeet audience is not at all intimidating. I would feel much more intimidated speaking to the staff at my own school.

The variety of the snapshots shared yesterday is what makes this kind of (un)conference so satisfying. Further investigation is made possible after the event when you follow links to blogs, and links and summaries of information shared on Twitter #tmmelb. The learning after the event is ongoing.

Of course, meeting new people and catching up with Tweeps is always the most enjoyable and enriching part of these events. I enjoyed the mix of education backgrounds, including teachers from both primary and secondary students, from all faculties, elearning and ICT people, principals and assistant principals and museum educators. It’s nice to connect with different sectors and hear about what they’re doing. The breadth is really valuable.

I have to say that I enjoyed ALL the presentations, but I’m not alone in saying that Mel Cashen’s (@melcashen) moving presentation of her visit to Rwandan schools was particularly inspiring, and enlarged my perspective in terms of what’s important in education on a global scale. Mel has obviously experienced something life changing, and it will be interesting to follow her path from now on. Thanks, Mel. Here’s the link to her blog – well worth reading.

Please also take the opportunity to involve your students in Judith Way’s high-quality Readers’ Cup program which Judith and friends generously organise in their own time and without charge.

Finally, I must rave about the tour of Quantum Victoria’s facilities – very big and very impressive. The programs sound amazing; I’ll definitely share these with science/maths teachers at school. Adrian mentioned something coming up which focuses on literacy so I’m keen to find out about this and involve my own students. I’ve leave you with a couple of photos of the 3D objects which came out of the state-of-the-art printer. Lots of oohing and ahhing at this point.

Yay for collaboration! The face of professional development is changing!!

8 thoughts on “4th Melbourne TeachMeet hosted by Adrian Camm at Quantum Victoria”

  1. Thanks Tania,
    It was a wonderful afternoon, made wonderful by the volunteers who present and the welcoming atmosphere amongst the crowd (and the food was good too!). I applaud you getting out of your comfort zone and presenting and one day may have the guts to do it myself ! Interestingly, your reflections mirror my comments after the last TM
    http://ccoffa.edublogs.org/2012/04/15/people-power-teachmeet/

    See you at the next one !
    Celia

  2. Thanks for this picture about the event Tania. I would have loved to attend, but find the tyranny of distance is an issue for me. Weekends are just so long, and living on the other side of Melbourne makes it a long day. I also find that there is just so much to do at home when you work full time and it’s a hard call to weigh up if you should devote more time to learning and less time to family. Wouldn’t it be great if a teach meet could happen on a school day, and staff could get cover to attend?
    Love the 3D printer images – I’d really like to see that in action!

    Jenny 🙂

  3. I totally agree about time allocated to life and learning, and that we should be able to do these things on a school day. I don’t even know if these things are approved as professional development in our documentation. For me the distance was very minimal this time, virtually up the road.

  4. Thanks so much for this colourful summary of the Teach Meet. This, together with the live stream of the day’s presentations, allows people like me who couldn’t attend, a chance to ‘be there’!! So many interesting ideas were shared – and as I’ve told you in other forums – you have opened my eyes to what esle is out there on Facebook! Thanks Tania!!

    1. You’re very welcome, Bev, and this is how it works now, isn’t it? We share information and events and others do the same so we don’t need to feel we missed out. I’m glad you found my Facebook tips useful. There really is good stuff out there for everyone.

  5. Tania, well done. Like Bev I thank you for your post and involvement with the Teach Meet. I felt honoured that FacingIT was included in your presentation, thanks so much for promoting our group. Having a video for those that can’t make it is a terrific way to involve us all.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *