RM Inform Conference, Birmingham

I spent a very interesting day at the Motor Cycle Museum in Birmingham as a participant in an RM Inform Conference. Lots of interesting and provocative ideas and lots of interesting people to talk to about them.

Dame Mary MacDonald, Head of Riverside Primary School,in North Tyneside led the way with an impassioned plea for putting the fun back into the curriculum and children's lives in school. She argued that the current curriculum was too academic and much too prescriptive and that in following the 'given' lines we stifle fun.

Speaking to a partisan audience, Mary found empathy with the group who recognised her style and 'up-frontness' ... she castigated inspections, strategies, targets and most current institutional initiatives and carried her audience with her in her rallying cry of the fact that 'every child certainly did matter'. The group consciousness oozed from the assembled teachers who you could feel really wanted to have her as their head teacher.

She hid the underlying issues of government interference behind the 'no fun in school' banner and declared that 'fun' should be in. She was and is right. Childhood seems to have become a precursor for something else that we are not sure of. We test, target and measure our young people as if progress through and artificially prescribed system in the key to life. What is left out is the fact that each and every moment of each and every day is of tremendous importance and that today is not just a rehearsal for tomorrow but an entire , exciting 'moment' in its own right and needs to be celebrated and safeguarded.

You got the sense from listening to her that she was there and would drag others, if necessary, kicking and screaming towards the recognition that every child matters.

She commented that we could be a load of 'Strategy delivers and creativity crumblers.' ... such was the strength of her conviction that if I have it wrong I feel sure she will let me know!

She ended her 'set' by saying: A classed bewitched by learning ... fizzes'. We all knew what she meant.

Stephen Heppell spoke with his usual laid-back passion about 21st Century Learning and called for a mashup of wisdom with wild enthusiasm. He illicited a concept of 'in betweenies'... those places between 'now' and 'not now'. He argued about the divide between the 'banners, and the 'doers' and gave many examples of young people being the teachers and commented that learning was a ubiquitous commodity.

He had observed, he said, that it was now 'cool to be brainy' ... just watch kids with Nintendo DSs !

...and at the end of the day there was Gervais Phinn. If you have never seen him or listened to him then if you get the chance ... do so ! Anecdote with reality and above all children in mind ... that is what you get.

I obviously didn't get to see all of the break out sessions but those I did see were excellent and left food for thought. The session on 'Primary Schools of the Future' had a terrific lead in video put together by Jon Sparke and Andrea Carter... and here it is -



There was so much more than this in the day and all the details and downloads of presentations etc can be found here.

Speaking Freely

This blogged by phone by Stephen Heppell at the RM Inform Conference at Birmingham today:

"Doug hi, it's Steven Heppell. I've just had a really interesting lunch time chatting to people actually but must admit that I'm amazed that how good all this is getting you know, ... but this is a technology. We've got inflatable stuff here, we got pocketables here, we've got wall shape stuff here man. Really, really, really ... times that we're always ready to demonstrate those showing some of that from around world, but I tell you what there's some fabulous stuff here."

spoken through SpinVox

Speaking Freely

This blogcast was recorded and translated by mobile phone from the RM Conference in Birmingham today.

"Hi my name is Andy Fisher, I'm the manager from the City Learning Centre in Middlesborough. We're here at the RM Conference in Birmingham, demonstrating a 3D steroscopic system we doing a lot of work with. We've been looking at applying this technology in the classroom for 2 or 3 years now. I know about 60 of these systems out there... in the 3D space, we'd also created a number of software and environments to go in to this"

spoken through SpinVox

Andy Fisher was demonstrating an awesome system of 3D projection where two data projectors and a clever bit of software combine (with a pair of specs) to give a great 3D experience. You can read all about it here... and check out Reach Out Interactives - the 3D Experts.