SETTing Sons

Still working up to giving my thoughts and reflections on the SETT conference, but first I wanted to get some general comments out of the way. I'll start with some of the things I'm scunnered about.

Firstly I'm scunnered that I had to miss the whole of the first day because of teaching commitments. In particular I am scunnered that I missed Andy Carvin's session (although Andy has helpfully posted the presentation he used and a podcast of what he said). I'm scunnered I missed Alan November's video conference (I saw him at SETT a few years ago and thought he was extraordinarily inspirational). But the thing I am most scunnered about is that I missed the Masterclass dinner! (It was my own stupid fault, I had the dates wrong and thought I was going to the dinner on Thursday night. In a bizarre way, it was a double disappointment. I was annoyed I missed the dinner on Wednesday and I was annoyed that I wasn't going to get a dinner on Thursday! Does that make sense?)

So, what were the bits I enjoyed most? Some of the good points will undoubtedly come out in future posts, but here are some of my general impressions. I always think one of the best things about SETT is the free pens... No, sorry, I mean meeting people. :-)

I particularly enjoyed meeting Ewan McIntosh this year. I even had time to have a coffee with him. I think I taught him when he was at Jordanhill but it is because of his blog (where helpfully posts this picture) that I really got to know him - and I do feel I know him. It's one of the things that I think is interesting about this blogging thing - it's about conversation, it's about social interaction - it's about people. It was especially fun to discover that his mum reads my blog - hello Mrs McIntosh. :-)

Speaking of people, I saw John Johnston in the passing but didn't have a chance for a chat. He and Ewan did however get to meet and recognised each other from the pictures on their blogs. :-) John has already started posting his thoughts on SETT, including one on a round table discussion on podcasting with Ewan and Andy Carvin. Interestingly, he has had a couple of comments on this already. One from David Warlick who says how much he enjoyed SETT last year and that he's sorry he wasn't able to come this time. I really enjoyed David's session last year and he is partly responsible for getting me into blogging. I went to look for his website after his session, and found his blog, and found out about RSS, and found some other blogs by people I know, and... Anyway, as I said above, it's about community. David was at SETT last year and has obviously kept reading some Scottish blogs. Brilliant! It's a conversation. Another comment is from Andy himself. John makes a post about a session and one of the people involved in the session joins in the conversation. I'll say it again... Brilliant!

Finally for this post. I came across a few more Scottish educational blogs. Firstly, searching for Scottish Learning Festival on Technorati turned up an SQA blog! It looks more like a newsletter than a blog, but I'll stick with it a bit longer to see how it goes. For instance, I have already discovered the SQA are working with somebody at the University of Strathclyde about an e-mentoring qualification. I worked on a full Diploma course in this sort of area a few years ago, but it sort of fizzled out and the other people involved moved on to other things. I'll need to try and track this University person down and see if it is too late to get involved. The other blogs I discovered through Ollie Bray. I went to a session he co-presented and he mentioned he had a blog. There are in fact a few at the Exc-el site (an East Lothian site?). Unfortunately (unless I'm missing something obvious) there is no way to leave comments. Is it still a blog if you can't leave comments?

Finally a special prize is available to the first person to explain the origin of title of this post. :-)

Tags: Scottish Learning Festival | SETT | blogs
| blogging