Archive for January 7th, 2008

NAPE Cymru Conference, Swansea

| January 7, 2008 | 1 Comment 

A keynote and training day for NAPE, (The National Association for Primary Education), Cymru, at The Towers Hotel & Spa, Jersey Marine, Swansea Bay, South Wales.

NAPE is a partnership to promote the education of children from birth to thirteen

Membership covers some 200,000+ people, including parents, teachers, school governors, inspectors, education officers and entire school communities.

NAPE plays an active part in discussions concerning children from birth to thirteen at national, regional and local levels.

NAPE delegations and representatives meet with Government Ministers and Opposition Spokespersons, the DfEE, SCAA, OFSTED and other relevant bodies and agencies to promote the cause of primary education and offer expertise, advice and information.

We had a superb day, despite some major “Techno-Troubles”. A large room, full of around 140 people on their first day back after the seasonal break, and we managed to get through those problems with a smile and a laugh.

Thank you to Rachel Evans, and her colleagues, for organising a really enjoyable event.

In the afternoon, before we went off on some wild and wacky musical stuff, I thought it would be fun to try some performance poetry based on Cyber language.

<>!*”#
^”`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<>~4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

For the somewhat cybernetically challenged, it goes something like this (using the proper cyber-names):

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma …CRASH!

It is amazing how expressive simple computer characters can be!

:-) (…in other words : – ) )