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Last night was the first Teachmeet for Sussex and Kent. It took place at The Hop Farm in Paddock Wood and was a fantastic evening. I hope that I’ve managed to collate everyone’s ideas, presentations and links below… if I’ve missed anything, please let me know and I’ll update the post.

• Mark Warner (twitter) – Using Memiary in the Classroom – I was picked by the Fruit Machine to speak first. My previous blog post shows what my presentation was about, and includes a few things that I forgot to mention last night!
• Stephen Lockyer (twitter / website) – Bansho whiteboard techniques – Stephen discussed the use of the board in Japanese schools throughout the lesson. This was a really interesting concept, with learning objectives clearly displayed and separate areas of the board used for separate things (with collaboration areas / pupil work demo areas and more). One other key point was that once things are added to the board, they are not removed… nothing is rubbed out. I would definitely like to find out more about this, and it’s made me want to think about my own use of my Interactive Whiteboard and the black board in my present classroom. Stephen also mentioned the use of Glogster to create backgrounds for whiteboard slides / presentations – another trick that I’d like to try out.
  
• Jason Dilling (twitter / website) – Edmodo – Jason talked about the use of Edmodo with his class, using it to discuss and share ideas and set homework. Edmodo is another fantastic resource which is well worth trying if you’ve not seen it before.
• Chris Thomas – (twitter / website) – Using spreadsheets for classroom management and generating lesson activities – Chris has created some great spreadsheets which can be used in a number of ways. The first is hosted by Google Docs and allows Chris to keep records of his pupils’ reward system (merits and sunnygrams). The spreadsheet shows how many points each pupil has and automatically generates a graph to show pupils how many more points they need to receive a merit and / or sunnygram. These graphs are sent to pupils via Edmodo so that they had a way of checking at home and school.
  Chris also showed a Word document which uses mail merge to generate personalised worksheets for pupils, allowing the teacher to choose a particular multiplication table for them. The document then creates an activity sheet with simple sums and complex problems linked to the target set by the teacher. A fantastic idea… maybe Chris can show us how to make these in his next iPrimary tutorial?
• David Philips – (twitter / website) – Teaching relational Databases, Nintendo Wii Style! – David brought along his Nintendo Wii and demonstrated the use of games like ‘Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games’ to generate sets of data. This data was then used within databases to help children to understand the concepts more easily. Although this was targetted at secondary pupils, I can see the use of Wii to generate data also being useful with some of the ICT concepts that primary teachers have to teach explore with younger children.
  
• Joe Dale - (twitter / website) – Giving your Powerpoints the WOW factor – I was really impressed by Joe’s Powerpoint presentations when I watched his Teachers’ TV programme earlier in the week. Seeing them in action, with Joe talking about them, was incredible. He must have spent many hours creating these interactive resources, using clever techniques like colour coding and macros to build really engaging presentations. I can’t wait to try some of these out! Joe also mentioned his use of Animation Factory to find appealing cartoons and animations for this slides. I think I might be subscribing to that site in the near future!
  
• Anthony Evans (twitter / website) and Nicholas Hughes (twitter / website) – Anthony and Nick spoke about ICT and APP, offering a resource that they had to help schools with their assessment of ICT. They had inherited this from Julian Nietrzebka and are happy to send you a copy if you send them on DM on Twitter.
• Nick Hughes (twitter / website) – DSi in my classroom = engagement – Nick spoke briefly about his use of the Nintendo DSi games consoles (bought by his school’s PTA) as a web access tool, allowing the children to do online research alongside their peers who were using other tools. The photos on his blog show the children using a range of tools (including the DSi and laptops) completely naturally. I’d love to have access to these tools in my own classroom… something to aim for definitely.
• Danny Nicholson (twitter / website) – Classtools / Prezi – Danny’s blog is a great place for any whiteboard user. Last night, he mentioned a number of resources which teachers can take advantage of… including the Classtools Countdown timer and Prezi. Both of these are well worth looking at if you haven’t seen them before.
  
• James Barrett (twitter / website) – Online Games and Tools – James shared a number of his wonderful resources that are posted on his site www.ictgames.com and at the Kent NGFL site. Although I’ve used some of James’ games before, last night he showed a number that I had never seen before. I particularly liked the Whiteboard Dictionary (KS1 and KS2 versions) and Premiership Words which allow the teacher and pupils to make excellent use of an interactive whiteboard during writing sessions. James has an enormous collection of interactive resources which are all free to use, so his site is definitely worth exploring.
  

Lots of the speakers have included links and resources on their own sites, so it’s a good idea to take some time to look around what they’ve posted online.

Thanks to Stephen for organising the event and to Leon Cych (twitter) and Chris Thomas for filming it. Thanks also to everyone who came along in person, or participated and watched via the Flashmeeting.

I discovered so many new ideas and resources and met a lovely bunch of people (many of whom I’ve been talking to on Twitter for a while now but never actually met). If only all staff training events were this inspirational! I’m already looking forward to Teachmeet SUKE 2010.