bits'n'pieces

back in the sprawling metropolis and reflecting that even stannington has more going on the telford, i'm starting to look through the bits of my notes that didn't make it into fully fledged blog posts. i'm also starting to regret my rashly made promise of a more upbeat post than the last one...so let's start with some conference game news! all 4 contestants will receive an ironbridge and/or telford related prize (i may have inadvertantly overstated the quality of the prizes involved here, so please don't get too excited - can i blame the credit crunch for the lowering of quality standards?). but i did v much enjoy all the submissions, as they helped me cope with the dark moments in very very dull sessions - so thanks for playing :)

talking of games, richard and i did start to work on ideas for inter-lti games tournaments of some sort - more news to follow shortly.

now, where to start with the rest of it? tell you what, rather than trying to cover previously unmentioned sessions, i'll share a few of the questions that attendees asked during them, as they seem much more interesting than the content itself (looks like 'upbeat and positive' are going to have only limited use in my vocabulary today!) - where i can remember, i'll try to indicate the topic of the session:

• opening keynote about pedagogical drivers: will education ever truly become a driver for the development of technology rather than adapting social technologies? will educators be able to imagine truly creative applications of 'new' technologies?
• designing tasks for engaging mobile learning: by giving people information about pre-defined trails or pathways, are we actually encouraging them to be more passive (eg, giving someone a trail of information to access about particular animals as they walk around a zoo)? what role does curiosity have to play? will people become so focussed on the 'extra' information they now have on their mobile device that they'll become more blinkered?
• mobile devices in nursing practice: in personal/social use of technology, mobile devices become an integral part of who you are, a way of expressing yourself. can we ever give students meaningful enough activities in education that this will be replicated? what is the role of ownership (of device and/or activity)?

ok, just to finish off, a couple of my favourite snippets from marc prensky's keynote:

• in response to educators who object to having to adapt to "the kids" and their new ways of learning - students asking "why should we have to adapt to the past?".
• can we start to see the digital divide as a digital multiplier? eg, in a class of 20 where only 5 students have a mobile, don't set them individual tasks - set them group tasks where they develop collaborative skills as well as developing subject-based knowledge.