Tuesday, May 24, 2011

#teachmeet Five Years of Teachmeets

TeachMeet Logo

Subheading could be five years of teachmeets and the world is a better place but it has not changed.

Five years ago some folks working in Scottish Education discovered a model for something called an "unconference  " - a more spontaneous and crowd sourced way of organising and hosting a gathering of like minds. With a little light branding (see logo above)  and a set of "rules" what started as an an annual event  has almost become a movement.

But there are a few bits that need ironed out -

  • Organisers need to keep looking at ways that the unconference model has progressed - the model and rules need to continually evolve.
  • A model has not really been worked out around  the custodianship of the teachmeet model .
  • There is not a place or guidelines on how you might archive or share the goodies that are uncovered at your teachmeet
  • Some purists stiill struggle in balancing the spontaneity of the model with any form of sponsorship or a sponsored slot

With these caveats anyone organising a gathering of educators in any sector - should try and incorporate a teachmeet section in the proceedings - would be a perfect session to include in any staff development day too.

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