EduTECH is Australia's largest education technology event. With over 3000 delegates and the very best speakers from around the globe, it was a conference that I felt excited and honoured to attend.
I am going to take the time in this blog to reflect on each of the keynote speakers I heard and the break out sessions I attended. Using this space is purely for a place to reflect on the ideas and practices that were presented and how I can see these ideas become processes in my school.
Daniel Pink
Daniel kicked off the conference with a engaging look at the 'Science of Motivation.' The driving question surrounding this presentation was 'What motivates people?' Through many examples and case studies, Daniel thought through what motivates us.
What's the underlying law of motivation? Usually it is that rewarding behaviour will give you more of it, punishing will get you less. But how can we think this through and is this always the case?
The top things I took away from the keynote were:
Ewan McIntosh
Ewan is the founder of NoTosh Limited, a company that works with some of the world's top creative companies and school districts. His presentation was on design thinking and how we can use it to enhance problem-based learning.
There were many wow moments from the time spent with Ewan but my top moments would have to be:
Stephen Harris
I was excited to hear from Stephen Harris who presented "The School of the Future". Stephen is the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, which is situated on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. The school is known around the globe for being a pioneering school in 21st Century learning spaces - showing innovation and creativity in every centimetre of the school. Rather than sit here and explain all that they do - check out their website http://www.nbcs.nsw.edu.au and do check out the tab SCIL.
The afternoon sessions were delivered as break away sessions where small groups could hear from different people about specific topics.
I first listened to Netbox Blue present on safe social media practice. Although they might have been trying to sell their product through this session, it wasn't obvious. Key ideas were:
I was really excited by my next session which was on Game Based learning but left utterly disappointed that the entire 30 mins was used by the company to sell their game learning which was made just for Mathematics. Being a English/Humanities teacher I was not impressed at all. I will not mention the company name, purely because I do not want to endorse them as I do not know if they are great or not, as I am not a Maths teacher.
The final breakout session I attended was a panel discussion about BYOD. It was great to hear from a variety of people about their experiences with BYOD and reflect on the journey my school is currently taking in its first year of BYOD.
Finally, the day ended with Gary Stager discussing the current creative technology trends we simply can't ignore. Gary started off by giving us the following email address [email protected] Feel free to use also for some great resources and to connect with Gary in the future. Gary was honest, frank and put his opinions out there. I was engaged for every minute of his presentation.
Key thoughts were:
So, hope you enjoyed that long reflection :). More to come in my next blog on day 2.
I am going to take the time in this blog to reflect on each of the keynote speakers I heard and the break out sessions I attended. Using this space is purely for a place to reflect on the ideas and practices that were presented and how I can see these ideas become processes in my school.
Daniel Pink
Daniel kicked off the conference with a engaging look at the 'Science of Motivation.' The driving question surrounding this presentation was 'What motivates people?' Through many examples and case studies, Daniel thought through what motivates us.
What's the underlying law of motivation? Usually it is that rewarding behaviour will give you more of it, punishing will get you less. But how can we think this through and is this always the case?
The top things I took away from the keynote were:
- If...Then rewards - are great for short term simple motivations, but not good for long term and complex thinking. And isn't this the type of thinking we want to motivate in the 21st Century? So are if..then rewards an option in our classrooms today?
- Often we think we are doing the best for our kids by rewarding them when they are motivated. But sometimes if it is something they already love, and we rewards them constantly for it, then the love to just do it, without any reward, could slowly disappear. This made me think and reflect how important it is for teachers to truly know the students in front of you. Their likes, dislikes, passions, needs, etc.
- People do not work best when they are put in environments that work using control. There are only 2 options in environment - you either comply or defy. We do not want our students to comply - we want them to thrive, to enhance, to explore, to be passionate, to think past what we say and go to that deeper level! So we cannot stand in front of our class and expect to be that controlling figure - it's time to be a facilitator, not a controller.
- Constraints can hinder motivation and creativity. This made me think about our assessment tasks that we make each child do - are we hindering their motivation and creativity by being so narrow-minded in what we want and need? If we want break-through work, shouldn't we let students take it in whichever way they need to show their thinking and understanding?
- Autonomy is the key - today management in schools is taken to seriously. Management is a technology that was made from the 1850s as it was designed for factories to get compliance. But compliance will not and does not encourage creativity and motivation and will not engage people
- We all desire to be masters in our craft - teachers, students, any profession. But to become masters, we need to make progress and see it and be able to reflect on it. And receive feedback. Without these, we cannot master anything.
Ewan McIntosh
Ewan is the founder of NoTosh Limited, a company that works with some of the world's top creative companies and school districts. His presentation was on design thinking and how we can use it to enhance problem-based learning.
There were many wow moments from the time spent with Ewan but my top moments would have to be:
- He presented some great characteristics I wish I would see on a job description - be curious and protect your curiosity, listen to yourself, humble is cool, good energy is infectious
- The idea of 6 pillars of innovation and learning - challenge, collaborate, choice, responsibility, respect, real things. These are such great words to share with other teachers and students for that matter. Imagine being able to challenge yourself, collaborate with others and have the choice of how we can show our mastery. Then we could really show the respect we have for each other and our ideas and skills, we can be responsible for our learning and the learning around us, because we respect what is going on and we know it is real because we are working with real people, real things.
- Ewan presented many different design thinking processes and case studies of how they could be used which are going to be great to take home and try in the classroom.
- He questioned how we look at some of the smaller things in our schools - for example, timetabling. He challenged participants to think about how traditional models are not always the best and that we need to start thinking outside the box and think about how we can foster and enhance deep learning to occur. Can that really happen in 45 min blocks?
Stephen Harris
I was excited to hear from Stephen Harris who presented "The School of the Future". Stephen is the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, which is situated on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. The school is known around the globe for being a pioneering school in 21st Century learning spaces - showing innovation and creativity in every centimetre of the school. Rather than sit here and explain all that they do - check out their website http://www.nbcs.nsw.edu.au and do check out the tab SCIL.
The afternoon sessions were delivered as break away sessions where small groups could hear from different people about specific topics.
I first listened to Netbox Blue present on safe social media practice. Although they might have been trying to sell their product through this session, it wasn't obvious. Key ideas were:
- social media is becoming one of the best learning tools - blocking it from our students is not the answer
- social media can draw out creativity, encourage collaboration and equip our students for life outside the classroom
I was really excited by my next session which was on Game Based learning but left utterly disappointed that the entire 30 mins was used by the company to sell their game learning which was made just for Mathematics. Being a English/Humanities teacher I was not impressed at all. I will not mention the company name, purely because I do not want to endorse them as I do not know if they are great or not, as I am not a Maths teacher.
The final breakout session I attended was a panel discussion about BYOD. It was great to hear from a variety of people about their experiences with BYOD and reflect on the journey my school is currently taking in its first year of BYOD.
Finally, the day ended with Gary Stager discussing the current creative technology trends we simply can't ignore. Gary started off by giving us the following email address [email protected] Feel free to use also for some great resources and to connect with Gary in the future. Gary was honest, frank and put his opinions out there. I was engaged for every minute of his presentation.
Key thoughts were:
- how can I make the next 7 hours the best 7 hours of a child's life?
- we don't need to teach students how to use technology - they already know how
- it is time we lifted our game.
- The computer is not just about looking stuff up - we can also use it to make things.
- Programming is the future - time to teach that rather than how to use Word, Excel etc.
So, hope you enjoyed that long reflection :). More to come in my next blog on day 2.