It has been mentioned on this blog before about the changes we made to Teachmeet during the recent tmhants event and I believe this is another first (although maybe it isn’t). We collected email addresses from all that arrived at tmhants and used this to send them a survey after the event. We have had 32 replies so far, representing around 1/3 of all attendees.
So what did we ask? And more importantly, what did they say?
59% of respondents work in primary, 22% in secondary and the rest in both/other. 78% also described themselves as a class teacher. This reinforces the fact we were very high on teacher numbers compared to consultants.
Another fact mentioned before is that most attendees had never been to a TM before and the survey shows that 91% had never attended before, which is great!
When asked how confident people were with technology out of 5, there is a broad range going from 9% not confident to 31% very confident. I would also assume that some of the less confident people haven’t filled in the survey too. It might be a general assumption, but the more techy people will check email more regularly and although it’s been 3 weeks, they are more likely to complete a survey straight away.
19% of people said that they attended due to the freebies. There has been a lot of debate about the role of sponsors and free trials etc, and I know that for the primary people, this was a key thing in getting them involved. Most people came along though because it ‘sounded like a good idea’ or they wanted ‘to share ideas’.
When it came to advertising, we have a very mixed response. 19% of people heard about it through our ICT mailining lists (ICT Sec and ICT Prim) and 19% saw a message through the VLE. This lats one is interesting. The message in the VLE went to 1,100 teachers. From that, we attracted 6 people. Maybe it is a flaw with the VLE, but messages are only highlighted for 7 days, after this, you need to click ’30 days’ or ‘365 days’ to see them. Bit frustrating. Despite a low ‘hands-up’ when asked if the attendees were on Twitter, 41% of survey respondents found about tmhants via tweets. The Naace mailing list attracted 2 people and good old face-to-face nagging enthusing via VLE training sessions brought in 13% of respondents. Bizzarely 22% of people found out about tmhants in other ways. I can only assume this is maybe via facebook or because their friend brought them.
The venue got average marks. Parking was fantastic, but due to high costs, drinks were limited. We also got a couple of negative comments regarding our equipment. We needed larger screens and/or a microphone for people at the back.
Only 1 person said that the use of sponsors detracted from the main event and this was a secondary attendee, our sponsors were all primary-based. We asked people if they thought the freebies and sponsors were relevant to them, most primary people said they were and most secondary people said they weren’t. We expected this. The freebies were to entice the primaries and it worked.
My favourite statistics are that of the respondents, 16% presented at tmhants and when asked if they would present next time, 44% said that they would. 100% of people said that they would attend another tm event.
We asked what people felt they had gained from tmhants. Some of the comments we received include:
- wrote down all the links and some lesson suggestions, next day messaged them to all the staff. I will be using many of them
- I have now added to my bank of website and free online resources which, in sure, will come in very useful to both me and my class.
- Brilliant simple ideas from teachers in primary schools. Use of websites that provide lots of resources that I have not heard of or used before. Enthusiastic teachers of ICT sharing ideas.
- 1.Networking with others.
2.Meeting like-minded others
2.Sharing ideas with others/learning from others.
3.I’ve spread the word to those back in school/didn’t attend.
4.Learning something new.
5.Demonstrations of web 2.0 tools etc really useful.
Impact? – Will definitely be trying an ebook, to start with. Would like to do more but time constraints maybe an issue. - Confirmed my personal professional practice was focused in the right areas.
- A few ideas for different software / approaches, nothing major. Biggest thing was the idea of creating fictional characters on the VLE.
- Will be trialling Purple Mash with the children – hopefully putting a link button into Wizkid (Ian – Hants’ VLE) for them to try over half term.
I want to try using SumoPaint with the children too and possibly make an ebook from their drawings to put on Wizkid.
Also, I am doing a staff meeting after half term to show the teachers all the new websites I discovered (myebook, delicious, etc). - knowledge of online resources such as sumo paint, scratch, xtranormal. Have got our ict tech to try to download these on to our network now. will aim to use scratch and xtranormal with year 6 children to create a multimedia anti-bullying presentation.
- I came away with two new ideas for teaching. That’s worth a few hours of anyones time.
- I am definitely going to set up my own class blog and I’ll try out some of the new websites.
- Some good ideas that could be adapted to infant school.
- Very interesting to see examples opf good practice and ways of using new technology – very inspiring! As a headteacher I am keen to see how teachers are developing and sharing their expertise and have gone back to school enthusing. It will help me support my ICT coordinator in developing and promoting new technologies across the school.
- It was really interesting to see all sorts of differen and new ICT ideas that I could actually use in my classroom. As a real novice to this world I thought that many of the things that were talked about seemed possible for even me to give a go to (with a bit of support anyway!!) I have already used brain pop, I want to give ebooks a try and and will be trying to blog too!
I hope that these results are interesting, they were for me.
If you are organising a TM and want to see our (very simple) survey and adapt it, just email me.
