So the second best thing about being in Bolton yesterday after the amazing group of Year 6 students that were in attendance was that I got to sit in on an introductory Garage Band workshop that and Joe Moretti, and ADE from the UK was giving. All I can say is: Oh. My. Goodness. Now I need about 30 hours in a day. Amazing, amazing stuff that I’m really looking forward to playing with on my long, 8-hour plane ride back home on Sunday. Joe did a great job of getting the kids and their teachers to start playing, too. And this picture epitomizes the experience…kids engaged, collaborating, pushing ahead of their teachers many of whom were left scratching their heads. I found myself trying to channel into their fearlessness and I found it hard to keep up. As Joe was going through the many ways to create and manipulate the sounds and music, I was trying to jot down some notes along the way. But not the students. They just went after it.
We did some blogging yesterday, too, and another highlight from yesterday’s workshop was an impromptu Skype call with Chris Turek from November Learning to ask a question about the software that Bolton was using to support its network. When I asked if anyone had any questions for Chris, a whole bunch of hands shot up. Where are you from? How big is Texas? How many people are there? Do you own one of those big hats? Too funny. The kids, and the adults, were amazed that I was talking to my computer and having a conversation with someone halfway around the world. Just another connection…
So despite having to do a final workshop today with a group of high school students back in Liverpool, last night I just could not sleep. I’d be surprised if my brain shut off for even a couple of hours. I laid in bed directing the MacBook Movie I should have been making on this trip, catching snippets of the kids, the technologies, the travel. In my fog, it was a great movie. I kept thinking of David’s keynote and Alan Levine’s presentation (coming up next week), how fun and interesting I found them, and how much I’d love to make my own. But here’s my dirty little secret…getting up in front of hundreds of people and delivering a message is something that no longer bothers me, but I still feel horribly shy about going up and talking to people one on one and, even more, capturing it digitally. I really envy those who can do that easily. Another challenge to work through.
Anyway, here’s hoping I get some sleep tonight…
technorati tags:bolton, learning, blogging, GarageBand
Just a quick note about Garage Band. They also own an amazing service called Gcast http://www.gcast.com/ A free account there allows you to podcast from your phone. I am using it for my online “Intro to Lit” class here at Western Kentucky University. The quality is not great, but it is clear. More importantly it leaps over the hurdle that is so tough for teachers–time. I’ve seen it in many an eye during numerous trainings, unspoken but coming through loud and clear, “Who has time for all this tech crap?” The way I do it is write a quick script using sticky notes, one note with one idea. I improvise from within the structure of those notes. Rough, but ready. Effective? Dunno yet, but it is too easy to do to not keep doing it.
The next step from this is to automate it as a message to my students’ cellphones. Garage Band Rocks!