Last week I had the pleasure
of attending the Microsoft European Innovative Teachers Forum in Vienna, Austria.
More than 150 education policymakers and teachers from 40 countries across
Europe attended the Vienna event, hosted by Microsoft, to share ideas, experiences and best practices on
integrating technology and innovative teaching into the curriculum.
I had a fantastic week, I listened to some interesting presentations, I was
enthused by some great people and won
first prize for the Innovation in the Community Category.
This is a great achievement for the UK, particularly Scotland and East Lothian. I also hope that my contribution to the
forum last week will start to impact globally on the creative ways that teachers
should be using ICT to support learning and to build relationships with
children.
My good friend Merlin John (make sure you subscribe to his website) was the first off the mark to get something published on-line and you can read his article here. There is also an official press release from Microsoft about the event here.
I was joined during the last
week by the three other winners of the UK Innovative Teachers Forum. Mandeep
Atwal (Mandeep also got a 3rd place in the Innovation in the
Community Category for her ‘Young Voices’ project), James
Kent (Wales)
and Chris
Henderson (Saltash.net). They were all fantastic company during the week.
The biggest problem is they all gave me so many ideas I don’t quite know where
to start!
The UK Contingent was also
accompanied by Kristen Weatherby and Stuart Ball, who are responsible for the Innovative Teachers programme in
the UK. They have already started to blog about the event –
I don’t quite no how they found the time? We were also joined by Sarah Payton
and Elizbeth Goodman (from Futurelab) Sarah ran an excellent workshop on the
Enquiring Minds Project – I’ll write separately about that and the work we
completed.
Finally we were joined by Dan
Roberts also from Saltash.net community
Collage who delivered an excellent keynote presentations.
I’ll write up more detailed reflection
of the event over the next few days. But I would like to publically thank everyone
for their best wishes and support over the last week and for award!
In particular, I would like to tank all of the
other teachers who were involved in the initial Musselburgh Guitar Hero Transition
Project. You were all fully
credited within the virtual classroom tour. I would also like to thank the
Musselburgh Headteachers for agreeing to take the risk and East
Lothian for having the vision to support the scaling up of the
project to all 46 schools within the Authority. I can’t wait to be involved in
the next stage of the projects evolution!
If your not already a member its free to joint your countries own Innovative Teacher Network.
Many, many congratulations Ollie - what an achievment! It's really exciting to have such innovative and creative teachers as you and Derek at LTS - we are very lucky.Enjoy your weekend. Patricia
Posted by: Patricia | March 28, 2009 at 01:24 PM
Delighted to read of your success, Ollie. Many congratulations.
Posted by: Val Vannet | March 28, 2009 at 03:13 PM
Congratulations on your win! I enjoy following uour blog and reading about how innovative ideas are being put into practice.
Posted by: Rosie MacAlpine | March 30, 2009 at 06:56 AM
Congratulations Ollie - fab news, for you and for everyone involved.
Good luck in your new LTS role - looking forward to you visiting our authority any time.
-Sally
Posted by: Sally Fulton | March 30, 2009 at 01:38 PM
Many congrats Ollie!
Posted by: David Rogers | March 30, 2009 at 06:55 PM
Ollie - always knew you were the best. Now the world knows it too!
Posted by: Walter Patterson | March 30, 2009 at 09:44 PM
Thanks Walter!
Posted by: OllieBray | March 31, 2009 at 07:39 AM
congratulations ollie! wonderful achievement - well done!
Posted by: Fiona Littleton | April 03, 2009 at 03:23 PM