An Inspirational CESI Conference

Last Saturday morning my colleague Julian Girdham and I set off for Portlaoise College to attend my first (and I believe his second) Computers in Education Society of Ireland Conference (#CESI2011). We had been pencilled in to give a short presentation on “Building & Growing a Subject Blog” in the late afternoon but were also keen to attend several of the other workshops and talks on offer in the impressive itinerary. I, personally, was eager to finally meet all those “tweachers” and edtech tweeps with whom I had been conversing with since I joined Twitter way back in November ‘09. Inspirational figures like @simonmlewis, @rozzlewis, @pajo23, @fintanmurphy, @anseoamhuinteoir, @pizievondust, @fboss, @magsamond and @lismiss (to name but a few) were all in attendance and I was excited to see each of them in the flesh. Needless to say, all were equally as impressive in person.

The day began with an inspiring and motivating presentation from @tombarrett, a powerhouse in the world of educational technology (or simply education in general). Tom spoke passionately about his views on education and offered some simple yet practical advice for getting the most out of our charges. Indeed, Tom was eager for all of us in attendance to contribute too and he asked each of us to write just one simple idea on a post-it. Since then, Tom has collated all those ideas and created a “mosaic” of all our suggestions including my own: Become a Tweacher, Connect on Twitter!

Unfortunately, so many of the presentations I wished to attend conflicted on the timetable (despite some being repeated) but I still got great enjoyment and inspiration from those I did attend, namely the excellent presentation by Ross Mahon from Google (with the guys from Camara) on Google Docs and @pajo23’s superb presentation on “Extreme Twitter”. I wasn’t sure if this was going to involve bungee cords or a parachute but it turned out to be a brilliant talk on using twitter for sharing news and information (or for the occasional treasure hunt) within the school environment – really inspirational stuff!

The day ended with a couple of hundred techie teachers singing in Zulu, all thanks to the inspiring figure of @markpentleton. And I think inspiration is surely the recurring theme of my first trip to a CESI conference. I was frankly astounded by the wealth of talent and enthusiasm amongst the delegates and workshop presenters. I genuinely feel that teachers are often excessively modest and don’t give themselves the credit they deserve, but the teachers I met as #CESI2011 warrant every plaudit. These individuals are experts in their field and in any other profession would be placed on a pedestal and praised from on high. Yet they seek no praise and do what they do, simply from a love of teaching and a willingness to share their passion with others. If that isn’t inspirational, then what is?

To see some photos from this year’s CESI Conference click here. Please leave a comment below if you were at this year’s conference and let me know which workshops you attended and who inspired you!