Ripple Dissolve: Saturday 15th January 2011
I think there were a few sore heads the next morning, but the atmosphere was still remarkably buzzy. Our IT support chaps manned their post at reception with reassurance and efficiency. It’s one of the major nightmares presenters have these days – will the tech work? It did. Very well. Yay!
As you can see, we were spoilt for choice in terms of electives this year.
Last minute sign-ups for sessions completed, we all peeled into the banqueting hall exam hall for the plenary session. Due to illness, the programmed session was cancelled, so Nik Peachey stepped into the breach and gave us a fantastic session on how to build up our PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) using social networking & internet based technology.
Judging from the people sitting behind me, I think this session was a bit like Marmite. Love it or Hate it. While I sat in rapt attention there were mutterings behind me of “Why would I want to do that?” and “Doesn’t he have a life?”
I think the potential for networks of any kind for information overload is off-putting for some. However, as Nik went to great pains to explain, he does all his filtering in a nifty 30 mins a day before he starts work. Not so daunting, surely?
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At lunch I endeavoured to explain to some of the non-believers that perhaps younger, less experienced teachers would be used to using these types of tool, and, more importantly, now that we certainly do not live in a ‘jobs for life environment’, there is a heavier pressure on us to constantly acquire new skills and extend our areas of expertise.
As I said, Marmite.
Nik set up a live backchat site for the conference, for those of us who could access the wireless (one of the only IT glitches of the day) If you’d like to read his presentation click here.
So, onto the first sesssion:
This was given by Peter Ryley & Jennifer Wain over at the University of Sussex ISC.
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They were here to talk about their ELPP class blog project – choc full of cultural reflection and some really great content. With over 100 students blogging, this was a perfect example of how thinking outside the box sometimes can produce bounteous rewards.
The presentation was great, with some really good discussion about being realistic about the time you need to set aside for a project like this, as well as a knowledge swap of practical technical issues.
You should go and have a look here.
There were a couple of really great resource links on their handout, too:
icons – this site has links to info and photos of typical British icons – everything from phone boxes to chicken tikka masala!
project britain – a fantastic web resource of all things British – a fantastic cultural gallimauffry suitable for so many activities.
My next two sessions were with Dr Wolfram Just, from Queen Mary’s in London.
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Adrian Underhill and Dr Wolfram Just ponder the dynamics of the pointy stick
The first “Time Delay Dynamics – Why Drunk People Cannot Walk” was a fantastically mega-nerdy maths exploration of how we go about solving problems – we looked at the simple question of how to balance a pointer stick on the palm of your hand and how you would go about putting that into some kind of mathematical framework.
We looked at a reverse idea – the pendulum – and then worked our way on from there, visiting latency, rocket engineering and biophysics on the way.
Now, to be honest, I have no idea what the maths was about – not my strongest subject – but it is credit to Wolfram that I can still remember every part of this presentation. I do know that we looked at transcendental equations and their “infinitely many solutions”.
I’ve never been so inspired (or laughed so much) in what was, to all intents and purposes, a deeply nerdy maths class. Wolfram was quite simply superb; an eccentric German maths professor.
Inspiring how? Because it just goes to show that if you know your subject inside out and are enthusiastic about it, then a high level of eccentricity in the delivery can melt even the iciest heart and engage even the most sluggish of brains.
Bliss. Total. Bliss.
Our second session, “Fractals – the mathematics of a paper strip” had us all folding paper strips, predicting the right angles and then seeing how something so simple and kinaesthetic could be used to demonstrate something as complex and mind-blowing as fractals.
images taken from here
Again, this was an inspiring and memorable presentation. I know this is so because I can still repeat it pretty much verbatim now, a month later.
He left us with this amazing landscape. Not a photograph, but a piece of fractal art. You can see more here
My final session was a two hander – the first with Peter Jenkins on “Helping students to answer exam questions effectively” where he invited comment on a new video to help students look at questions in a more focused way.
I have to admit that I was a bit late for this, having been cornered by a publisher from Macmillan, so I missed most of it – sorry Peter! I still managed to put my usual ha’pence worth in though!
The second part was an introduction to Bellerbys’ role in the world of social media, with Stephen Whitehead.
This was very interesting, I had no idea that Bellerbys took such an active role – and if you want to know more about it email socialmedia AT bellerbys DOT com or visit www.bellerbys.com/socialmedia
This session over-ran so I missed the closing plenary and hovered outside until the end, to say my goodbyes for another year to some really great delegates.
So, that about wraps it up for another year! I feel as if it’s taken me longer to blog about the conference than to actually attend, but I hope it’s given you some idea of the diversity of content and the consistent level of expertise.
As ever, the conference committee comprising David Rowson, Julie Waller, Adrian Underhill, Vic Richardson and Barbara Gardner deserve a huge thank you for all their organisational prowess.
Wojciech Cieszynski co-ordinated all the techie nerdy stuff and I’m sure there are plenty of unsung others to thank, including the APs and especially our specific centre coordinators, so a big thank you to John Gardiner, here in Brighton, too.
Roll on 2012!
Another slice of terrine, anyone?
Sarah Witherby teaches CIT on the Foundation programme and is AP for Bellerbys Brighton.
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