Recharge the battery
Thursday morning started with a speech by Dan Roberts from Saltash Community School in the UK. Dan is a great example on how innovative work can be rewarded also in your professional life: he has become promoted assistant head teacher as a result of winning the worldwide Microsoft Innovative Teachers Contest in Hong Kong. Saltash school calls itself Saltash.net which makes their mission clear. A couple of years ago they asked their students what they wanted. The kids said they wanted to learn how to learn, but especially they wanted easy access to technology and internet, wanted to produce with technology…
The project Dan won his award in Hong Kong with was called “Recharge the Battery”. Main objective was for students to understand the advantages and disadvantages of intensive and extensive farming. Starting point was a documentary on TV about where our food came from, which the students became quite concerned with. Dan wanted them to hear both sides of the story, gave them time and asked them to design a 3 lesson cycle that used technology and could give everyone a balanced argument about advantages and disadvantages. They also defined their own assessment criteria and success criteria before starting. 
The result was that they bought 6 hens and a pig and started breeding and feeding them. This process can still be followed on www.saltash.net/livestock where you can find a Pig Cam or a Hen Cast, plus ask an “eggspert” or follow the classes blog. Dan then started a live meeting session with two of his students back home who talked about their experience and answered some questions the audience.
