IBAP Teachers' Convention 2007 continued

The final dinner at the presenters' table. Left to Right: Ed Lawless, Professional Development Manager ; Ian Jukes; Peter Woodhead; , ICT Advisor, English Schools Foundation; Judith Guy, Regional Director IBAP; and myself.

Missing from the table was Stephen Heppell who showed us how he is getting students and teachers to learn collaboratively using technology.

IBAP Teachers' Convention 2007

This photo was taken at the opening session of the IBAP (International Baccalaureate Asia Pacific) Teachers' Convention 2007: Information Literacy Across the IB Programmes in Singapore, a few moments before my presentation. You can see that I am still making finish touches!

More details of my presentation can be found at: IBO Convention Keynote . It was difficult to leave a soft copy of my presentation, as it was mostly pictures and video. I had to add a number of annotations to each slide to make it make sense. I was also used Powerpoint 2007, which is much prettier than 2003 - what do you think? The convention computers had only 2003, so I had to do a quick computer swap at the start of the presentaion.


I have some strong views about presentations - They should be interesting and engaging. I am sure that we have all experienced "Death by Powerpoint" - "You don't need to make notes, as it is all in the handout, but I am going spend an hour reading the words from every slide to you"


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EARCOS Teacher's Conference in Bangkok

Nothing much to report from the Earcos Teacher's Conference - I was only there for the first day as I had to fly to Singapore for the IBO Technology Convention. I was presented two workshops - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Workshop I
Topic: Technology
Title: Using Multimedia to enhance Teaching and Learning
Description:Students of the digital generation respond much better to multimedia than simple text based resources. The research has shown that because of multimedia stimulation, young people's brains are literally wired differently.This session will look at first why and then how to produce multimedia resources incorporating video and sound to enhance teaching and learning.

Workshop II
Topic: Technology
Title: Teaching with Tablets
Description: Many schools are moving to a one to one laptop program, but Tablet laptops offer many advantages for education. If your school was to give every teacher a tablet laptop and projector, it would revolutionize the way teachers would teach. If students had them as well, the results would be even more dramatic. This presentation will give you the evidence to take back to change your school into a Tablet school.

I would like to thank all who attended both of these sessions, it was a full house both times.

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Why Every School Needs a Technology Director

This is a presentation that I gave at EARCOS Administrators Conference 2006 I have had to cut many of the slides out and all of the video, but I think the main ideas are still there.












The premise of the presentation was that schools did not become technology schools by natural evolution.
Pre-technology schools are in denial -
"we have projectors in every classroom"
- Overhead projectors don't count!












Pre-Technology schools have token technology access - not enough to influence teaching and learning.

Technology schools have

1:1 computing for teachers and students

Campus wide WiFi

Online curriculum

No intermediate technology like:

TVs

VCRs

Interactive whiteboards

Pre-Technology schools have a lack of investment in Network infrastructure
























Tech support should mean no downtime












Technology schools can make good use of the marketing opportunities of rebranding as a "Technology School"












What are the skill sets needed to make this happen?

Who can be a Tech Director? Many schools either promote their curriculum coordinator or Systems Manager.

Many bigger schools now have Tech Directors with skills from both camps

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EARCOS Administrators Conference 2006

“Shared Vision Through Collaboration, Technology and Global Awareness”


Ian Jukes : Understanding Digital Kids: Teaching and Learning in the New Digital Landscape. This presentation examined the new digital landscape and the profound implications this holds for the future
of education. It looked at what does the latest neuroscientific and psychological research tell us about the role of intense and frequent experiences on the brain, particularly the young and impressionable brain?

- I always enjoy listening to Ian Jukes as he is such a motivational speaker. I think as educators, we know that kids learn differently. They are used to multi-sensory stimulation and many do not respond well to "Talk and Chalk". I once had a class of 12 year old students listening to a Podcast on their computers. The boys especially, would not settle until they had a suitable visualisation on Windows Media Player to watch while they listened.

I teach in a 1:1 computing school and teachers complain that students get distracted. These are the same teachers who tune out of boring meetings when they have wireless access on their laptops. Students do the same, just more so. Teachers need to radically modify their practices to increase engagement.

My workshops:
Tablet Technology; its Application in Schools - Practical applications of tablet technology in the classroom. A comparison will be made between Tablets and Laptops and Tablets and Interactive Whiteboards. and why NIST has chosen to implement a one to one tablet program. A number of Tablets will be provided by a vendor for a “hands on” experience.


Why Every School Needs a Technology Director - covered in detail in a later blog

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