I could probably write a lot more than this but here are my top 5 tips for Teachmeet at the moment. I suspect others would place other things or replace things in here too and that’s fine. Every TeachMeet is different. I hope these tips help you with yours – after all, it’s really just about folk getting together and sharing teaching and learning ideas, with or without tech. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it and I’ve been involved at both ends of that spectrum.
1. The first rule of TeachMeet – talk about TeachMeet – spread the word however you can both before the night and on the night – just get people to come along – as the saying goes on the TeachMeet Wiki – be amazed, be enthused… use the enthusiastic people who are coming to help out as well. You can’t do it all by yourself, although you can if you want, but it’s a great way to connect even more.
2. As someone who has organised one or two or them; you can make them as whizz bang or as low key as you want. By all means, have some fun and go to town but keep learning at the heart of it all.
3. It has to be free – has to be… our (and I say our as my partner in learning on this outing was @betsysalt who did an amazing job in organising it with me) recent TeachMeet in Bristol was one of the best I’ve ever been too (not wanting to brag, but others felt that way too)
Well done to @ICTEvangelist and @betsysalt for #tmbristol For me it was the best one yet, ‘learning’ ran through it.
— Helen Rogerson (@hrogerson) February 6, 2014
4. Keep the TeachMeet wiki tidy. Don’t put up massive posts on the TeachMeet page. Simply:
- Visit the wiki, create a page first for the TeachMeet (I normally just copy and paste the content from a previous one and just tweak it for my latest one – feel free to do that from this one – http://bit.ly/tmbristol)
- Create a little banner to go on the page – something like http://pixlr.com/editor/http://pixlr.com/editor/ which is a bit like Photoshop is free and will enable you to create something tidy
- Go to the wiki home page – go to the edit option and then scroll down through the dates to find where your TeachMeet fits in to the list. Upload your image and add it in the right place. Link it to the page you created in step one.
- Promote your TeachMeet to your local schools and on Twitter and direct them to the page you set up on step one. I normally create a vanity link to that page to make it easier for sharing and people remembering – you can do this for free on http://bit.ly as I did with http://bit.ly/tmbristol http://bit.ly/tmclevedon5 etc etc
5. Try to get as much representation as possible from Primary right through to FE. There is an awful lot we can learn from each other and to coin a phrase from an up and coming TeachMeet; he who shares – wins. One of my favourite moments at TeachMeet Bristol was when I overheard a local secondary school inviting a local primary school to come and visit so that students could learn from each other. Brilliant!
Obviously this is not an exhaustive list and I’ve written about TeachMeets before but given how my thinking has developed on the topic recently; this post is now here. Hope you find it helpful.
And just to show what you can see on a TeachMeet, here are some pictures from #TMBristol
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