I’m down here in Adelaide for the AATE/ALEA National Conference – the conference just finished today, but I’m going to blog a few posts about the papers and keynotes I went to. I was tempted to take the lappy into the lecture halls and just write notes on the blog, but it never seemed to work out! I’ve still got a couple of days here for the AATE Council meeting, and then back home to do some PhD writing next week.
Happy School Holidays, eh? I reckon we should take up what a few independent schools do and just call it ‘non-term time’!
Seriously though, the conference has been good…I’m brimming with ideas now for teaching next term 🙂
Kelli McGraw 
#1 by darcymoore on July 10, 2008 - 6:49 am
Kelli, what techie sessions were there for English teachers?
#2 by kellimcgraw on July 10, 2008 - 11:26 am
Well, nothing that I went to that was badged ‘workshop’ was an actual workshop! And no computer labs were used, so despite all of the presentations about ‘online’, ‘digital’ and ‘multimodal’ text, there were no opportunities for hands-on experiences. Lots of YouTube and screen shots of Facebook embedded into PowerPoint slides!
#3 by kellimcgraw on July 10, 2008 - 11:32 am
techie content was everywhere though. multimodal was the conference buzzword. what disappointed me was that there was very little linking of new content or texts to the pedagogy that would be needed to engage with those texts.
#4 by darcymoore on July 12, 2008 - 5:21 pm
Yeah…I think it should be banned to ‘lecture’ from podium on how to engage students using collaborative and multimodal approaches. BTW installation of the IWB at DHS happened this week.
#5 by kellimcgraw on July 12, 2008 - 5:44 pm
ooh, how are you finding them? I have never really used an IWB, except at one of the RTA PD sessions. I wasn’t sure what else it really offered than putting a computer on a projector screen! But I have never seen one in action, with someone who knows how to use all the cool features.