What have I been up to this week?

This week I have been mostly...running around like a blue arsed fly. I started the new job on Monday, but, because there is no-one to do the old job (primary school Walk to School) yet, I have been trying to keep that ticking over too.

On Wednesday we ran some training in London for School Travel Advisors from the East and South East of England on "school walkability audits". This is where we go out with a group of parents and children and analyse a popular route to school in depth. They look for all the things that are nice, and not so nice, on the streets and we, as facilitators, log their comments and report back. I was running one of the groups, and it always impresses me (having been on these sessions before) how different people react to them.

One of the biggest challenges in the area we were looking at (near moorfields eye hospital) was the amount of "stuff" on the street - A boards, bins, motorbikes etc. There was also a lot of street furniture (lamp posts, phone boxes etc). We are so used to walking round them we often don't think "does this really have to be here?".

On Thursday I thought I'd just "pop in" to BETT, - the education technology show at Olympia. Five hours later I managed to leave - knackered but very inspired. The show is free, so if you get the chance to go, do! I met some very inspiring people - the guys who run infomapper.com were there (it lets you plot routes to school on an online ordnance survey map, then share the results), as well as truetube.co.uk - a sort of moderated documentary Youtube but with debates for schools - really cool!

I was also chatting with the sales guys from Quark (a desktop design and layout package) and Adobe (who make Photoshop) about how I might be able to use their products to work with schools.

Finally, just before I left, I went to a really good session about the use of gaming in education. There were four members on the panel:

• Derek Robertson from Learning and Teaching Scotland who went into schools with DS's to get the pupils to analyse the games - for instance learning about forensics from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney!
• Alice Taylor from Channel 4 who (I believe) are going to not be making any more "schools programming" for TV, but are (instead) going to be investing in educational games. Although most of their output has been/is through web based games, they are also looking at delivery through Xbox live, and the other online gaming platforms. She has moved to C4 from the BBC where she carried out research into gamers and their media habits.
• Gobion Rowlands (an educational games developer). He pointed out the role that teachers have in games - most of them are not gamers, and don't like being shown up by the pupils! As someone who once showed his history teacher how to use a fax machine (the teacher thought the piece of paper physically went into the phone line, and was perturbed when it kept coming out!), I know where he was coming from!
• Aleks Grotowski. She is a journalist and researcher (she is also working on a PHD) who had some very interesting things to say about the role of computer games, and play more generally, in talking with teens. You can see her blog, admire her hair, and read her take on the session here:

I have also been ill - snotty and horrible! I blame the teachers I bumped into at BETT!