Day 2 EdTech Summit Conference Sydney

Woke up this morning feeling slightly nervous, today was my turn to present.  We were very lucky the conference catered food so we were able to have beautiful meals at the venue.

The conference started with our Keynote speaker, Lindsay Wenser, she was very inspirational and motivating, she motivated me to make a difference with my learners.  She talked about making mistakes in front of our learners so they're able to see that it's okay to take risks and fail.  I think this is so important as our learners look up to us as teachers and if they can see that it's okay to make mistakes this will create a culture in our schools where learners can take risks and can fail.
With technology we're able to engage our learners in so many different ways, we can help our learners find problems that they're interested in and give them the tools to solve these problems, empowering our learners.  Lindsay spoke about time being our enemy, we never have enough time in the day to get things done, she then said that you'll always make time to get everything done.

I then had my presentation, I was quite nervous starting but once I started to calm down I was sweet.  I spoke about my inquiry, making movies with children and how to engage our learners to write.  We ended up making our own mini movies with other educators, just to get them more confident so they would be able to go and have a go with their learners.

I was extremely excited to see Anne Sinclair present about the Paideia Approach.  She spoke about how it is based around student led discussions and getting our students to think deeper about certain subjects and form their own opinions.  We then were able to have a discussion as a group and build on each others opinions and question each other.  This has been working really well in my classroom with our new discussion approach to mathematics, seeing the children talk and question each other I can see multiple learners cognitively engaged in their learning.  I will definitely be using this approach more in my classroom during literacy.

I then went to listen to Jesse Lubinsky talk about various Google resources that were available to us.  He created a website to show us all the different things we could be doing in our classrooms with our learners.  Did you know that on Google Maps if you go into street view and drop the man on the street you can go back in time and see that exact spot 2-10 years ago!  Earth engine is pretty amazing too, you can see a location/country from a satellite view and see how much it has developed over as much as 30 years, Dubai is an amazing example, would create great discussion with our learners.  Have a play around on the site above and I guarantee you'll learn something new, if not email me and I'll try help!

This conference was amazing, I took so many amazing ideas and learned so much that I can incorporate in my classroom.
The two biggest things that I got from this conference was

• Connecting with educators from all over the world and finding out what they're doing in their classrooms and what is working and what isn't.
• Being able to reflect.  Take time to think about what is happening in my classroom and what is working and what isn't.  Hearing all of these new ideas gave me the chance to think about how I can shake things up in my classroom a little bit.

Thank you so much to the Manaiakalani Education Trust once again for giving me this opportunity.  This was such an amazing experience, I was able to gain so much confidence and learn so much that I can take back to New Zealand and share with my colleagues.  Also massive thanks to Dorothy Burt and Anne Sinclair for being amazing Aunties and looking after all of us while we were away!

Day 1 EdTech Summit Conference Sydney

I was very lucky to be given the opportunity to travel to Sydney and attend the 2 day EdTech Summit conference.  Thank you to the Manaiakalani Education Trust for giving me this opportunity. What an amazing day full of new ideas and connecting with educators all over the world.

Today was started with Jesse Lubinsky all the way from New York a very inspirational passionate man.  He spoke about children being superheroes in disguise, as educators it's our job to bring out the super power in each child and to see them shine in different ways in their lives.  Our job is to make every student in our class super while creating an environment where they feel safe to take risks and make mistakes.  When students are able to take risks in the classroom they will see failure but the joy that comes after failure is even greater.  

This really made me reflect on my own teaching and the learners in my classroom; am I giving them an opportunity to be super heroes?  Are my learners comfortable with taking risks in my classroom?

I then went to a session about using Lego in Literacy using doing stop go animations.  This is all about letting learners be creative and have conversations about making stories.  Giving learners this time is important to be creative and have fun in the classroom.  This is the animation I made below.

We finished with the Demo slam where presenters were able to give a 3 minute presentation about a tool or tip.  We had multiple speakers.  Our own Dorothy Burt spoke about creating a Google Keep app for your doc that's very simple and easy to use.

Today was full on, we learned so much but now I have to spend time thinking about how I'm going to incorporate all of these amazing ideas into my teaching practise.