Thunder

One of the many discussions from the recent Teachmeet in Glasgow was the topic of filtering.  Many of the web2.0 applications that we were talking about are being blocked by isp’s or LA, what can we do to get around this?  In Shropshire I have to email our corporate IT team, who are in charge of our broadband connectivity, and ask them to get our ISP to unblock it.  Most web2.0 technologies appear to be blocked, but the reasons they blocked are very bizarre, I noticed last week that Google Spreadsheets was blocked - the category it was blocked under was ‘chat’, I suppose I could use this real time collaborative spreadsheet as a chat room, but could I really be bothered?  I think most technologies they don’t understand they just block and class it as chat.  Tedtalks was also blocked as it has ‘talks’ in its url, I don’t think they check the websites when they block them if they did I don’t think they would have blocked it.
I mentioned that Becta had an article about Flickr that I used to persuade IT services to unblock Flickr, you can view it here.

Following from Teachmeet, Theo has created a wiki for sharing ideas about the educational implications of using online video editing applications.  So if you feel like joining the debate pop along and sign up.

The biggest problem I had at SETT was having no business cards to give out, so last night I spent some time looking for business card websites - and there are far too many!  My favourite is Street Cards, especially the gaping void cartoons - that were on the Stormhoek poster we received at Teachmeet.

This morning I checked my rss feeds and came across a link on Ewan’s del.icio.us account to Moo, a mini card site that can print your own Flickr photos onto your cards. At the moment they are giving away a pack of 10 cards to the first 10,000 Flickr Pro users.

Teachmeet was a great success – I was able to put a lot more faces to names I have read over the past year. The informalness (I don’t think that is a word) of the event was definitely a major plus, at times several of us were sat on the floor, similar to pupils in primary schools ☺ The only problem with these events is that you pick up so many great ideas and there aren’t enough hours in the day to investigate them all.

I would personally like to thank the speakers: Theo, David, Ollie, Chris, John, Kate & Sean, it was a shame we didn’t have anymore time to listen to anyone else.

A big thanks most go to both Stormhoek for supplying the wine and Promethean for paying the exorbitant corkage charges charged by the Crowne Plaza, and also for Ewan for doing the bulk of the organisation.

The meal at the Goat was a great success and I eventually got to meet Mrs Mc (Morgane).

I hope I get an invite up to SETT again next year so I can meet you all again and gain from your wealth of experience and creativity.

PS Ewan, we need to get a photo of you in your t-shirt.