Now for part 2 of my story. Part 1 is here. The Good To Great 2008 Teaching and Learning Seminar at Nanyang Technological University concluded on Thursday afternoon. There were a number of workshops where the threads of the conference were drawn together and presented to the attendees at the final session. The participants in my group considered issues such as the bridges that need to built to connect teachers and learners. The obstacles that one could encounter were considered and finally the first steps that one needs to take were discussed among the group.

How can we build bridges between teachers and students?

There were some very creative teachers in the group and one collection of teachers produced the following two illustrations…

Two challenges faced by teachers in utilising technology in teaching and learning.

A first step that can be taken by teachers in using technology in the classroom…

During the course of this workshop I fired up Twitter and posed the questions to the ‘universe’. Sue Waters [blog ~ twitter] of the Edublogger and Willis Whitlock [blog ~ twitter] graciously responded and I shared their timely and informative input live with the participants. It was quite neat to be able to demonstrate this tool ‘live’ per se. Thank you very much Sue and Willis! Much appreciated!

Sue and Willis contribute to the discussion via Twitter.

I am not a frequent user of Twitter. I received some feedback about Twitter at the seminar. One commentator confused Twitter with Skype and declared that they would stick to Skype. I find it difficult to understand how anyone could confuse Twitter with Skype. Two completely different tools with two completely different functions. Like comparing apples with aadvarks. By the way, Sue Waters, just published another excellent post about Twitter and some of the tools that you can use to access the messages and embedded urls. Sue is a legend. Sue wished to know how the participants had responded. I shall get a transcript of their work and share it with Sue and all that read this blog.

We all explored Twitter and WebNode

I conducted a couple of more workshops on a variety of tools including WebNode, WordPress and podcasting. I worked quite hard and I think all of the participants had a beneficial time. Some of my workshop participants are pictured above and below.

Together we explored podcasting, blogging and webnode. Too much for one day!

During the course of the week the conference presenters and delegates were supported by the brilliant team at the Centre for Educational Development and student helpers. They were all very helpful and totally committed to ensuring everyone had an excellent expereience.

The excellent team of the CED

June, far right, with the wonderful student volunteers

At the end of the day, Friday, I packed up and together with Sheryl and Vivien of the Centre for Educational Development at NTU took a taxi directly from the university to the new T3 terminal at Singapore’s Changi International Airport and we shared dinner. It was a wonderful way to conclude the week. Vivien and Sheryl are excellent company and we had a great evening. They bid me farewell at the gate and I took a Singapore Airlines flight back home to Australia.

Vivien and I

Sheryl and I

Our excellent dinner!

Vivien tries the spicy soup!