Thursday 13 November 2014

iPad Summit, November 13/14 2014. Pre-summit post.

iPad Summit

Hopes and expectations:

I'm currently flying to Boston for the Ed Tech Teacher iPad Summit. I last attended the event when it was held in Atlanta last April.

A lot has changed for me since then. My last iPad Summit visit  had a lasting and significant impact on pretty much everything I do. I ended up attending the Atlanta conference  after successfully submitting a presentation  proposal which indirectly led to me leaving my teaching job to set up a consultancy business with David Andrews.

I learned so much in 2 days and made connections with people I continue to learn from. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to listen to and discuss ideas with teachers from so many different schools, states and countries as well as connect with thought leaders and pioneers such as Reshan Richards, Greg Kuloweic, Lisa Johnson and Michelle Cordy.

The key message that technology is a tool for teachers to use but learning and pupil progress must paramount is something I continue to find myself discussing a lot. There are still many teachers with suspicions and misconceptions about  classroom technology and still many school leaders who invest in technology without having a clear purpose for and desired outcome from its deployment. A teacher's main objectives remain the same with or without classroom technology - learning, progress, standards. At times tech demos from the rep from the tech store, or the worthy and widely respected SAMR model can become a distraction moving thinking subtly towards the technology and away from the learning. Teachers are right to be sceptical until they see something they can use in their work to make an impact on the job they do and the pupils they teach. Engagement is not enough.

I hope, over the next 2 days, to gain further insight into what is happening in schools around the world. What  is making the impact on students' learning and progress? What ideas, programmes and  process can  be scaled up to ensure the biggest impact for all pupils and teachers. Sometimes it can be frustrating to meet a brilliant teacher doing astonishing things with technology and when asked "Who else in your school is doing this?" being  told that there is limited whole-school take up and application. I know I'm in the right place, because I'm with the right people addressing the right  agenda. We want the same thing.

I like the iPad summit because it is about sharing. So many committed, creative and passionate educators coming together creates invaluable dialogue, collaboration and momentum. That's why I'm attending, I want to be part of that learning process. Here is my schedule for the next 2 days.

 










Revival and Redirection

I'm going to start using my blog again. It served its purpose for me and I stopped using it. Brief background to the blog is this:

As a teacher I felt I lacked confidence in my judgements at levelling pupils' writing.
The blog was my attempt at creating  my own CPD (quietly and privately) by asking fellow teachers  to help me with online writing moderation. It was a moderation blog (mod-blog) and it worked. I got my own training from the only true experts out there (people doing the same job as me happy to share, no point to prove or axe to grind)

I do think anyone and everyone in teaching can and should do this. Lots do! Something so simple like preparing a google form with a question and asking for responses. Daniel Harvey, a secondary teacher I have worked with in Birmingham did this recently. He created a form asking for practical classroom  technology ideas to share with his staff. He posted the link on twitter and asked a few people who have ed/tech followers for responses retweets. So simple.




Anyway, this blog has been dormant for a while now bit it's still there and it's still mine so I now feel like adding some posts to it. I'm sitting on a plane to Boston for the Ed Tech Teacher iPad summit trying to write a pre-summit blog. I hadn't been aware of wifi on a plane working when a device is in flight mode, but it works and as  I'm flying over Newfoundland I can wave at Canada and exchange tweets with my twitter teacher friend Rolland Chidiac. (@rchids)



Will see how far I get with the revival of my blog.

P.S

I didn't get any further as I struggled with password reset. It's now 4:48am and I can't get back to sleep ( jetlag?) so I will try to finish my pre-summit post.