Learning on the Beach 10 going back to my learning routes evening 1

No I have no family connection to Ireland except for my 100 year old granny was born in Belfast on a day trip from  Stranraer.
Learning on the Beach 2010 Lob10 http://lob10.wikispaces.com/ came at a really opportune time . I booked on the wikki ages ago before the current turmoil around my current employment kicked off and went using annual leave. Billed as a unconference not a teachmeet but with some of the spontaneity and honesty of teachmeets .

John Davitt explains the concept while cooking on the barbecue (near the beach). Excuse the upside down video idea of turning learning on its head ;-))



Arranged if thats the word by John Davitt Angela Davitt and Eliza Mountford at Mulranny on the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo

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Now learning on the beach or specifically learning on the move really took me back to my roots when I used to teach prospective Nature conservation staff who now have gone onto work for RSPB, Scottish Natural heritage etc  at an FE college. My wife is also a talented environmental education specialist who I have observed doing smelly cocktails, smell maps Nature Palettes and map sticks . Plus to be honest I am a bit of a outdoor nutter cycling, walking, and recently swimming . My first introduction to tech was stealing a BBC micro from a computing department to write my poly dissertation plus doing loads of computer cartography in my degree (days before GPS yes I am that old !)

Now I realise the value of this approach and like Dughall huge fan of forest school movement But I hadnt really thought about its value when linked to edtech .

Now this first learning on the beach wasnt that tech heavy apart from a google map reference time to get to opening session and wifi up a beach with the help of some tech and car battery a standard router and an ariel 

But this was against an activity using a outdoor friendly low tech version of Johns now famous Learning event generator
which now my favourite Ipod App  called the Random Activity generator the The Rag plus of course a beach barbeque







This involved us forming into three groups and being given the following tasks.
1) History of of Ireland as sand drawings on the beach.

2) Salt Marsh formation as a theatrical whisper

3)  Tidal processes as a mini opera

The evening made me think non more so than the arrival of Chris and Sandra Kerndter and there two children who live on Achill Island come originally from Germany and just discovered the lob wiki on the web and just trucked up  .
The Lob in my view is about space to think and taking yourself out of your usual environment "comfort zone" into the "inter tidal zone"

I made a statement about a LOB manifesto what discovered on the beach is gets off the beach to a wider audience whatever the means this post on day one of the Lob is start of that process . Can I also recommend you look at Dugghalls blog on Lob at http://shareit.yhgfl.net/kirklees/kcyps/ .