The Student Teacher Resource - And Other Things!!

So I thought I better tell you all about The Student Teacher Resource as promised in my last blog because im sure you are all intrigued to know more about it. Well I hope so anyway. Where to start... (Just to warn you I have tended to blab in this blog about more than just the website!!)

A few months back a guy I had never spoke to may I add on my uni course got in contact with me to ask if I would be interested in 'making my cv look good' and of course as a passionate uni student I wanted to find out more. John Sheffield who likes to be referred to as JC (@JCBarrington) had come up with a fantasic idea for a website where student teachers in Plymouth uni can share their ideas with each other. I thought the idea was brilliant so was very keen to get involved with the project...

I was assigned the role of running the early childhood studies part of the website as this is my subject specialism. All together there were nine of us who volunteered to run a different part of the website according to our subject specialism. The project started off small but over the past few months it has spiralled in ways we never imagined. Its amazing about how such a simple idea can turn into such an exciting project. What is also exciting is that I am now the deputy project leader which I would like to thank JC for...

I have become extremely passionate about the website and working alongside JC has been brilliant. One thing I do not understand about uni is that there are people you may never speak to throughout your whole time there and who you see everyday but why? These are the people that you probably have the most in common with. Meeting JC and also Katie O Reilly (@kforeilly) recently has shown me this. Make the most of every opportunity to meet new people and make time to share your interests with them because these are the people who will more than likely be around throughout your teaching career. University is too much like school where people stay in their click groups. Being a 'good' teacher is all about collaboration and too many students are set in their ways from school and college. I don't know if that is a controversial thing to say or not?

The word collaboration brings me on to teachmeets... Another thing I am now extremely passionate about. Its amazing how over the past few months my confidence has grown and now I will do 'whatever it takes' to become the best that I know I can be. And this is where a thankyou should go to Pete Yeomans (@ethinking) for helping me do this so far. At the third teachmeet I went to Pete encouraged me to present the website to other teachers from the south west. They all thought it was a brilliant idea and Claire from vital particulary showed a great interest. Me and JC also presented the website at the plymouth e-learning conference teachmeet last week which also sparked alot of interest.

The website has many exciting prospects at the moment which I hope to be able to tell you about later which is a good enough reason to follow by blog I think. The website is now not only a resource sharing website but is now a student teacher support network. A student teachers facebook I think. If you are interested in the website development or me then follow me on twitter @trainieteacher or the website @StudentTeacherR ... Me and JC would also appreciate if you checked out the website at http://studentteacherresource.co.uk/ and give us any feedback you might have. I hope you have enjoyed reading my second blog :)

My First Post - PELC11

Well what a perfect time to start writing a blog after three Inspirational days at the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. It has been amazing to meet such motivating professionals from all over the world. Some inspirational people from the conference included Stephen Heppell, John Davitt, Dan Roberts, Dan Kennedy, Andy Black and Simon Finch. The last few days have certainly been very thought provoking for me. The conference also allowed me and my peer John Sheffield to promote our website called The Student Teacher Resource. I will talk more about this project in my next blog. We had some great responses about the website and also some exciting prospects which I may be able to write about in the future. Check out the website at http://studentteacherresource.co.uk/ The teachmeet on wednesday night was deffinatly a highlight of the conference and was also my second time to present. I was a lot more confident this time and actually throughly enjoyed presenting. Many fantastic ideas were shared which I will take away and use in my own practice. Teachmeets are something that we as teachers need to promote as with limited funding for training we need to organise our own personal development. So all I can say to end my first blog post is that I am looking forward to next years e-Learning conference :)