TeachMeet Student Edition 2009
I’ve spent a portion of tonight collaborating with some colleagues across the country to drum up support and attendees for TeachMeet Student Edition 2009. I’m not going to go into great detail about what TeachMeets are, because this is widely covered in many other places, most notably the TeachMeet website (http://teachmeet.pbworks.com). What I can do is vouch for TeachMeets as being the most relevant, satisfying and worthwhile CPD I’ve been involved in, eschewing as it does the ‘I-will-now-read-this-powerpoint-to-you’ type of presentation by keeping it short (you get 7 minutes to set up and speak) and maintaining a friendly and informal atmosphere.
Tonight’s collaboration focussed on contacting Probationer Leaders in all 32 local authorities to promote the event to their charges. Stuart Meldrum set up this Google Spreadsheet to coordinate contacting each authority – the idea being, it’s better to get someone who the Probationer leader knows (or at least, has heard of) to contact them rather than a blanket email from one unknown email address. So far 18 out of 32 authorities (nine sixteenths of the total, level D maths fans!) have been contacted, but that leaves 14 still to be contacted.
If you are able to help with this task, by contacting someone in an authority you know, then please add your details to this spreadsheet!
Contact details for the leaders are available on the GTCS Probationers website.
It was amazing to watch this all happen tonight, and an affirmation of the value of building a network of colleagues – TeachMeets and Twitter have been invaluable in this.
edit: I should say that Iain Hallahan (twitter) has been instrumental in making all of this happen tonight. Cheers Iain!