RSCON4 - An Exciting Weekend of Fantastic CPD!

I am delighted to be presenting at the global and internationally renowned RSCON4 virtual e-conference.  This action-packed event is going to be held online from Friday October 11 - Sunday October 13th.

I have had the pleasure of presenting for The Reform Symposium Conference on two occasions, RSCON2010, and RSCON2011 and this year, it promises to be bigger and even better than previous years. Presenters will be sharing transformative approaches to learning and teaching. Influential international keynote speakers are currently being lined up to deliver presentations that will challenge our way of thinking and inform us about the way forward in education in general.

Professor Sugata Mitra will be delivering the Opening Plenary - The Future of Learning.

Below you can view a screenshot of the main page of The Future of Education ning site where more details are available. If you join the Future of Education group, you will be able to keep up to date with all the announcements and news about the forthcoming presentations.

You can find out about all the RSCON4 updates via Twitter by following @RSCON4 and using the hashtag #RSCON4.

I can guarantee that you will enjoy a wonderful weekend of Continuous Professional Development in the comfort of your own home!  I am looking forward to learning about lots of different topical subjects from passionate educators from around the world.

You can read more blog posts about RSCON4 on this Gdocs created by Chiew Pang here: http://goo.gl/KvplSP

Some Visually Inspiring Activities!
My session is called 'Visually Inspire Your Learners!".  It will be held on Sunday October 13th at 4pm Rome Time.

I will be discussing ideas and highlighting some activities to inspire and motivate learners connected to images, comics and cartoons and photo-editing tools.

Examples of Picture activities I have blogged about in the past can be found under the label Picture Activities.

Teach Meet International presentation on Visual Blogging with Muzy:

Slideshare of the Virtual Round Table Presentation on Project 366: A Picture a Day.

Please note, sadly Posterous does not exist any more as a blogging platform and so the links refering to my Project 366 blog on Posterous no longer function, which is a great pity!!  However, some of the ideas contained in this presentation, and the others mentioned in this post, may be included in my RSCON4 presentation.

I hope to present some of my favourite activities and I plan to create a few new ones, especially for RSCON4.  Watch this space!!

WIKI 
I have created a special RSCON4 wiki page to add ideas, links and resources!  It is a work in progress.....

Please click on the Make Beliefs Comix below to enlarge it.

Interview Update
This evening I had the chance to chat briefly about the event with Bruno Andrade, an inspirational EFL teacher and moderator from Brazil, and you can view it below.
Thanks very much to Bruno for giving me this opportunity :-)

The Lake School of English: News Update

The Lake School of English has recently been awarded 14 points of strength out of a total of 15, credited by the British Council.  It continues to be a Centre of Excellence in 2013. You can read all about it, and view the full British Council Inspection 2013 report here.

 Image of bus from Bus slogan generator

It is now one of only two UK schools to have received this outstanding result. I would like to wish all its dedicated group of directors and staff my heartfelt congratulations!

I was lucky enough to be in the staffroom when the result came in several weeks ago and I was able to enjoy the joyous atmosphere and impromptu celebratory drinks with a few members of staff.  After I had spent 2 hugely enjoyable weeks running a Creative Teaching for Secondary Schools course, this fantastic news was the final icing on the cake.

This truly outstanding accreditation is fully deserved and I am proud to be associated with the Lake School.  Having first walked in to the establishment in 1982 and hired on the spot to do a 1-1 session the following week, I have always felt a part of its rich and vibrant history.  I know very well how incredibly hard everyone works in all aspects of the running of the school, always paying great attention to every little detail.

I have four personal photo albums spanning from the 1980s to the present day.  These memories will one day be a vibrant reminder of my time spent at the school and will be something to treasure forever.

There have been many celebrations of fantastic achievements by the school in the past, but this one I believe tops them all, as it is the most current, and it means so much to everyone. Well done!!!

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Photo of Fireworks by @eltpics. Link to original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/6325716290/sizes/m/in/set-72157627956640513/