The topic was to be VLE's (Virtual Learning Environments) and luckily I already had a presentation prepared for a different audience so was quite happy to do it. I discussed what a VLE is, why use one and how we can use it to enhance our teaching.
I made the point that the people in front of me were at the start of their careers and it was up to them to push technology as the future of learning.
I then handed out a document of all the things I could think of that a VLE could be used for:
An interesting question arose. "Is there a danger of VLE's making teachers obsolete?" Ultimately my answer is "no". Children will always need a teacher to guide their learning. But I pointed them to the work of Sugata Mitra and his "Hole in the Wall" experiment. His work is so very interesting because it shows what children can actually learn BY THEMSELVES if given the means to do it:
Two quotes I must repeat from the second video (attributed to Arthur C. Clarke):
"A teacher that can be replaced by a machine, should be"
AND
"If children have interest, then education happens."
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