Student Tech Wizards present at the Burnside Cluster 'Unconference'

Yesterday I took 14 Year 5 and 6 students from Fendalton Open-air School to the Burnside Cluster Learning Community Unconference to speak to educators about "How technology helps me learn." This was a wonderful experience for the children as they had the opportunity to prepare and present a 5 minute talk about a digital technology they regularly use in their classroom and how this helps them be a motivated and successful learner.

The students spoke at two 45-minute sessions which were run speed-dating style. Each small group of educators rotated around the different presenters to hear a short talk about eight different digital technologies. These included Google Classroom for online homework, Google Docs for writing and commenting, Google Drawings for creating posters, flowcharts and visual messages, Google Research tool for gathering data and images from the Internet, Google Slides for creating and presenting slideshows, Movenote for creating short videos, Scratch for coding and details about the Tech Wizards programme.

The opportunity to present at the Unconference was offered the 30+ students in the Tech Wizards group who meet before school on Fridays. Tech Wizards is an optional programme for students who want to learn about new technologies, share their learning with others and give service within the school. Not only did the Unconference presenters present on the first day of their school holidays but each student worked in their own time to write a script, identify key pieces of work that demonstrated their topic, refine their presentation with either with myself or our e-Learning leader, Carmen Dodd then practice their talk in front of the wider Tech Wizards group. 

My purpose for taking the students to the Unconference was two-fold. Firstly it provided an authentic audience for them to share the knowledge and skills they have gained over the last two years. It also gave them the opportunity to further develop their public speaking skills including talking to adults and adapting a planned script to suit their audience. The students demonstrated commitment to this responsibility by arriving well before the session, dressing very smartly (boys even wearing ties!) and nervously asking questions like "Will I need to stop reading my script to answer questions?", "Will it be noisy and will I need to speak loudly?"and "What should I do if I don't get through all my talk?" While the delivery of their first presentations were serious they soon relaxed into a comfortable style, confidently explaining their topic and offering teachers the opportunity to give things a go. 

And this was my second reason for bringing the students to present at the Unconference. I wanted educators who may be new or unexperienced in digital technologies to have the opportunity to find out about them in a non-threatening environment. By learning from the students themselves, educators could ask questions, have a go and seek clarification about what students find useful without the use of too much techie lingo or the assumption that they will know things that perhaps they may not.  

I was extremely proud of the Fendalton School students and feedback received about the sessions was positive. I hope these young people have inspired teachers within the Burnside Cluster of schools to find out more, try something new and look for opportunities in their own classrooms where technology may enhance the teaching and learning experience.