Firstly, a request for leniancy: If this post starts sounding disjointed, it’s probably because I’m writing it in between parent-teacher interviews that I’m conducting tonight and tomorrow.

Parent-teacher interviews are often the signal that the end of Term 2 is here.  Normally, after committing yourself to so much time and energy writing reports, marking assessment tasks and preparing portfolios, not to mention about seven hours of parent-teacher interviews, the one thing you look forward to is a nice, relaxing break.

It seems, however, that those in the computer world (often already known for their warped sense of humour) think it would be a good time to hold a conference or two for those technology-interested and focussed teachers who want to learn more.  I’ve shared the school holiday offering I’ve been made aware of on technoblog.

So, what to go to… if anything?  Well, I have to say each of them grabbed my attention.  Two of them overlap, however, and I’m not sure about spending too much time in conferences and forums given I want to dedicate time to really planning Term 3 in my classroom.  So I’ll give the Catholic Education Commission’s Learning with Web 2.0 forum.

It will be interesting to see how I find it.  I have to say the workshop offerings suggest a target audience that’s a little less familiar with Web 2.0 than I am.  Not that I’m an expert, but I got a good introduction from a Teacher-Librarians Professional Development day last year hosted by the Parramatta Diocesan TL Network.  Judy O’Connell will be presenting (amongst others), but I think I’ll give her social bookmarking presentation a miss, given I’m already familiar with some of the tools; primarily from participating in a workshop by her on exactly the same topic at the same TL PD Day.

One thing I’m thinking of doing is producing a podcast afterwards to share some insights from the forum with staff via technoblog.  Perhaps I can take some portable recording equipment (there are several inexpensive mp3 players nowadays that include voice recorders) to capture live the thoughts of others.  Maybe I could even find a minute or two to interview some of the presenters from Parramatta who I know?