Earlier in the year a message was sent to Wikispaces users that they would be closing down. Now if you look for the original Irish TeachMeet wiki, set up almost a decade ago, this is what you are greeted with…

In order to keep as much information safely intact as possible, the site contents were wrapped up in a zip file (attached below) – it is not tidy, rather like one of those cupboards you open to have all the contents land on your head and spill on the floor – but it is all there (in two formats, zip files attached below). The three main elements from the “old” wiki have each been reproduced as a page on the “new” wiki

• a Welcome / Fáilte page with overview and instructions
• calendar of TeachMeets in Ireland
• the list of volunteers who have organised TeachMeets in Ireland since 2009

PBworks may prove to be as temporary a home as wikispaces was but hopefully it will do for now, and some bright spark will work out a better way to carve a comfortable space in which to settle. The main thing is that this one is open to anyone in Ireland who wishes to access, use, and develop it.

Head on over to irishteachmeet.pbworks.com and have a look…if you are having a TeachMeet, sign in and add the details.

[So it turns out a virtual house mouse can be as nerve wracking as a real house move. Having done one of each this summer, I’ll be happy to stay put in both instances for as long as possible. For the virtual move, big thanks are due to Richard Millwood and John Hegarty for wisdom, help, and advice. For the fact that the wiki exists in the first place, serious eternal thanks are due to John Heffernan – once a historian, always a historian.]

HTML archive zip file for Irish TeachMeet Wikispace 2009-2018 irishteachmeet_20180531-HTML

PDF file for Irish TeachMeet Wikispace 2009-2018 irishteachmeet_20180531

One (and a half!) of the most enjoyable and memorable hours at the Scratch conference earlier this summer in MIT was the workshop to showcase ScratchEd Meetup. Attendees were not leactured about ScratchEd Meetup; we were welcomed by Karen Brennan, Alexa Kutler and the team, and launched straight into a typical event scenario which prompted several “I want one of these” moments. Best part was hearing from those from the worldwide network who have hosted meetups in their area – Leanna from Kentucky, Pau from Barcelona, Simon from Tanzania.

ScratchEd has long been an online forum wherein educators who use Scratch can convence. From this has recently evolved the ScratchEd Meetup, an occasional or regular face to face catch up session described as a “participatory professional learning experience”, organised with a Open Space / Barcamp / Edcamp flavour.

Ireland has so many users of Scratch in dojos, code clubs and classrooms around the country, it is a fair bet that many teachers and mentors would enjoy participating in a ScratchEd Meetup (especially topical with the background chatter about Scratch3.0). Plans are currently being incubated, so do keep an eye on the website at www.cesi.ie, the @cesitweets Twitter feed (and probably #ScratchEdMeetupsIE, though it is a bit of a hashtag handful) for details of time, place, and sign up.

SCRATCHedMEETUPS manifesto:

For some background reading on the genesis of this peer designed participative professional learning, see this 2012 article by Karen Brennan and her colleagues: http://web.media.mit.edu/~kbrennan/files/Brennan_ScratchEd_Meetups.pdf