The Slide2Learn mobile event to be held in the Personal Learning centre at Shepparton High School, Victoria, is a collaboration between a group of teachers who have discovered a shared passion for mobile learning with the iPod touch, iPhone and soon the iPad.

Collectively, we have been able to harness the powers of web 2.0 to create a lively PLN to share our experiences with each other. Now we have decided to come together to share our collective knowledge with the wider educational community in Australia and beyond.

If you have considered the possibilities for learning with the iPod touch / iPhone and now the iPad in your school, but weren’t sure where mobile learning fits into your school’s eLearning plans, this is the event for you.

This will be a series of hands-on workshops, keynote presentations and break out sessions from which you can choose, to access this once only opportunity to find these inspirational educators working together.

A number of strands have been described to ensure our participants a complete experience in mobile learning. These are:

Showcase - sessions offer a range of examples of current practice around Australia and the world
Personalise - these devices offer lots of options for personalised learning
Create - sessions offer ways to create with/for the iPod Touch eg Podcasts, multimedia, creation using apps;
Manage - sessions offer advice/ideas on management - personal and program/school management, using iPods for productivity;
Connect - using the iPod touch to connect to the internet, contact with others and collaborate;
Learn - sessions showcasing the fact that it is not the iPods that offer the learning but rather the way they support good effective pedagogy that enhances the learning. Sessions would show how iPods are embedded in good pedagogy and context.

The kind of workshops you can expect include:
Meet the iPod touch
Literacy and numeracy with the iPod touch
Implementation planning for school leaders
Personalising Learning with iPod touch
Improving staff productivity
The iPod touch and music
The iPod touch for higher order thinking
Creativity with the iPod touch
Digital storytelling
School Showcases
Creating simple podcasts
1 – to – 1 iPod touch
The iPad

Some workshops will have the capacity to join in virtually using Elluminate.

We also have some very special guest presenters confirmed from the US. Tony Vincent from Learning in Hand, an internationally recognised expert in creativity with mobile learning, and Susan Wells and her team from Culbreth Middle School in North Carolina, where they have gone 1 – to – 1 with the iPod touch this year.

The event will run over two days in the first week of the Victorian school holidays in July. There will be many resources made available on the Ning at http://slidetolearn.ning.com for participants to be able to connect both before and after the event.