Hello and welcome
Forums > E-forum 1 session 1 (25/3/08) > Hello and welcome
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:29 PM |
Good evening everyone. Welcome to the first of our e-forum opportunities. There are two other e-forum topics besides this one, and all three are repeated later in the calendar. You can attend as many or as few as you like. The aim is to complement the discussion boards, which people contribute to over time; with the e-forum the contribution is real. They are an important component of the course because, once the project has run its course, they offer the most viable way for us all to continue to “meet” and share practice. They will also turn out, I think, to be really important ways of sharing and learning across centres. I appreciate that people may not be fast typists, nor particularly enjoy reading-based learning, but they are designed as a complement to the other forms. First, some quick housekeeping: one, submit at any time in response to a comment above. Responses will overlap, so it sometimes won’t be obvious unless you start it with a short indicator of which comment you are responding to (e.g. “Rich, I agree about the risks…”) Two: you can respond to multiple comments in one go, or start new thoughts. People will take up or leave comments as they see fit. If you want a direct answer, ask for someone to answer! Three: make it as long or short as you see fit. If longer, your topic might have slipped out of the spotlight by the time you’ve finished typing… Bear in mind that we’re ALL fumbling our way into a new technology for “meeting” here so let’s learn as we go! Suggestions for improvement will be considered later but let’s stick to the content tonight. Finally: structure of the evening. We’ll start off discussing the World Challenge material from the frontpage; I will periodically post questions labelled “RESTART” (please do not anyone else use capitals); at these points please consider the next question within the sequence rather than continuing previous conversations. After an initial flurry of responses (hopefully!) we’ll settle down to mulling this content more gradually. At about 8pm I’ll post, again on the front page, a second stimulus material item. You can drift into and out of this according to how engaged with how you feel with the discussion by that point in time. I suggest a formal “coffee” break (no-one will check if you’re drinking wine…) at 8.15pm for 10 minutes, which will be a good chance to look at that second resource then if you haven’t slipped out of the e-forum for a minute to consider it. At 8.25pm we’ll resume for a further half-hour, with 5 minutes housekeeping to finish by 9pm. I’ll post the opening question in a few moments once I think everyone has had a chance to read all the above blurb… Please can everyone just sign in and say “Hello, is here” to start us off… |
| damon hill 25th Mar 2008 7:36 PM |
hello, damon is here |
| Jenny Wager 25th Mar 2008 7:37 PM |
hi Richard It's Jenny - I don't think I can be here for the whole session - worklife balance - supposed to be getting some exercise - local badminton group - but keen to give the technology a try |
| Matthew Watson 25th Mar 2008 7:40 PM |
Hello, Matt W here. |
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:40 PM |
Hi Damon, hope the injury is healing. Hi Jenny. (This is Mike, though, Richard is "Operational Director".) Hopefully other people are just arriving or reading. Let's get started. So... the first question is: 1. Form an opinion of this kind of activity and whether it is good character education. What do we think? |
| Matthew Watson 25th Mar 2008 7:42 PM |
just looking at the world challenge website now |
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:42 PM |
I should add... apologies the info went up later than it should have. Normally it will go up by 6.30pm. Technical error now overcome. Hope you've all had chance to look at it. Also hi Matt. |
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:43 PM |
First impressions are fine. No need for deep analysis; our views will develop as others make remarks. Richard, are you in the room? |
| Jenny Wager 25th Mar 2008 7:50 PM |
Its Jenny Have just tried to look at the website - but problem with the security certificate - my (or rather husbands) computer is recommending NOT to proceed to the site! Clearly it challenges and puts the computer at risk - as in your introduction to the the task. Any thoughts about how to proceed.Jenny |
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:53 PM |
Hi Jenny. That will be your default security setting on high. There's honestly no risk with either the link (our uploaded document is virus-scanned) and the World Challenge website is perfectly kosher too. The security setting being on High will do that with ALL links - but click continue. |
| Matthew Watson 25th Mar 2008 7:54 PM |
First impressions are that they look like expensive jollies for rich kids. I know of a 16 year old who is going to Costa Rica with this group. It's basically the trip of a lifetime with one community project thrown in. His parents are paying half of the £1,800 and are organising a lot of other "fundraising" events for him to pay the rest - £10 a head to parents of school friends for a bowl of chilli and rice. Maybe I'm not the best person to comment! I guess the experience could be life-changing for him... |
| Matthew Watson 25th Mar 2008 7:57 PM |
sorry, that should have read £3,600 - his parents are paying £1,800. |
| operational director 25th Mar 2008 7:57 PM |
With you now - Rich Jenny - my browser wouldn't open directly from the document either - it opened in a new window though Rich |
| Strategic Director 25th Mar 2008 7:58 PM |
Speaking as a Citizenship teacher, one of the problems inspectors always point out in Citizenship is that two kids running the school paper and eight doing Young Enterprise is not "comprehensive provision" (in any sense). World Challenge strongly encourage everyone to raise their own money through fundraising; not all do, but some manage quite well. Yes, too many rich kids - but not all, by any means, and some work very hard for this. Does the money issue mean that this shouldn't happen, or that schools should reconsider their budgets and build this in? |
| operational director 25th Mar 2008 8:02 PM |
What if we transferred the principles of World Challenge to other aspects of school life eg. - not allowing teachers to take part in decision making, increasing the levels of risk (not necessarily just physical risk?) I've just come from a governors' meeting at a primary school where we were discussing the way in which 4 and 5 year olds are taught. There seemed to be a high degree of "trying it out", cooperation, teamwork, independence and interdependence. Interestingly, one of the adults employed with this group specifically looks after their social and emotional needs. |
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