The fall always seems to be a busy time with conferences, institutes and professional development opportunities. Just back from the 1 to 1 Laptop European Laptop Conference hosted by the Frankfurt International School. A wonderful learning opportunity for our region and a rich selection of sessions, conversations and keynotes. The event once again highlighted how important it is for folks to spend time face to face. The workshops and side bar conversations exemplified everyones commitment to support and participate in this type of professional development model. The generosity of participants to share their learning with others was great. Check out the twitter feed #1to1euro and Facebook for the conversations and links shared out. A special thank you to the Frankfurt International School IT team and school for facilitating this conference and providing an engaging venue for sharing and learning. We all are aware of the huge time and work required to facilitate such a conference , so hats of to the Frankfurt International School IT team!!
The conference provided rich conversations around the idea of the need to engage our respective learning communities in the change process, and what dynamics, variables, learning outcomes, goals and understandings we need to facilitate with our learners (parents, students and faculty/staff) to adapt to a world that has changed. Understanding this and then as a community engaging everyone in looking at new ways to shift the learning paradigm and being able to then engage structural and pedagogic changes to meet this challenge seems to be the overriding theme in a lot of conversations and keynotes presentations.. Better than trying to write this all out from the conference reflections this video by Will Richardson provides a good focus on this topic for you to share and engage with in your own respective learning communities.
Do mark your calendar for the ACS Cobham ECIS Tech Conference 14 to 16 March, 2013
Education Leadership: Will Richardson
Professional Development
ECIS Conference Nice, France: 21-25 November 2012
http://www.ecis.org/page.cfm?p=558
Pre-Conference and Conference Program
Please note: ECIS ICT Committee session: INTEREST GROUP FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY meeting will be at the following location: Calliope from 11:00 to 12:00 on Friday Nov 23, 2012
An agenda will be sent out next month, if you have items you wish to have on the agenda please contact me directly jmikton(at) isp.cz
Pre-Conference IT options to consider
- Podcast Like a Pro—(this is in prepartion for iTunesU) http://www.ecis.org/page.cfm?
p=525 - Google Apps— http://www.ecis.org/page.cfm?
p=528 - The International ITC Leader—Vision and Development Planning http://www.ecis.org/page.cfm?
p=545
Innovate 2013 Sao Paulo Brazil: http://www.innovate2013.org
Graded School’s commitment to re-imagine the school that best serves and inspires students for tomorrow. Please join us and innovators from across the globe to engage in a dialogue designed to ignite new ideas resulting in building a foundation for the change our students deserve.
In partnership with Un-Plugged at the American School of Bombay, the Lausanne Laptop Institute at Lausanne Collegiate, the European 1-1 Learning Institute hosted by the Frankfurt International School, and the Association of American Schools in South America (AASSA), Graded School is honored to launch the conversation in South America.
ACS Cobham to host ECIS Tech Conference 14 to 16 March, 2013
We are delighted to announce that ACS International Schools will be hosting the next ECIS Tech Conference at their Cobham campus, west of London, from 14 to 16 March, 2013.
The theme of the conference is ‘Learning to love the iGeneration – Is education ready to embrace the irresistible IT vision of tomorrow’s classroom.’ In developing the theme the ACS team felt it was important to provoke and engage delegates into thinking beyond the accepted. In return, attendees will find an event where powerful keynote speakers, collaborative breakout sessions, and hands-on experiences collide to further the integration of IT in education.
“We want to provide an arena to inspire future thinking,” asserts Steven Cliff, Head of IT at the ACS group of schools. “We chose our theme carefully, and only after considerable deliberation with colleagues from across our four schools. For us, the ECIS Tech Conference provides an invaluable opportunity for delegates to share ideas freely, while building valuable partnerships with colleagues from across Europe and further afield.
Registration for this prestigious event will open in September, with early bird discounts available until the end of October. Please visit the ECIS website to register and take advantage of the significant savings on offer.
Conference Alerts
http://www.conferencealerts.com/
Educators Professional Development is the largest online database of professional development conferences and workshops for educators and teachers from Early Learning to Grade 12.
http://www.educatorsprofessionaldevelopment.com/?m=200907&cat=17
BEI Conference Listings
https://bei.leeds.ac.uk/Generated/ConferenceListings/theCurrentYear.html
Bytes of the Month:
This month selection of bytes are courtesy of Mariam Mathew, ECIS ICT Committee member from the American School in London
Vital PD
Vital is a UK-based Professional Development organization funded by the UK government. For £10 per person (even less for groups), schools can have access to the subject portals and other professional development opportunities.
Power Searching with Google
Recently highlighted in Learning & Leading with Technology (ISTE) is an article about options for flipping the classroom. The following are organizations which provide tools to support teachers in creating screencasts and videos which students can view outside of the classroom:
TED ED (http://ed.ted.com)
Inspired by innovation centered on flipped classrooms, TED’s educational division, TED-Ed has tools to create customized lessons using online videos. Tools include context questions, supplementary materials for use with your own videos or videos available on sites such as YouTube.
Coursera (www.coursera.com)
Two Stanford professors experimenting with the flipped classroom has developed an online platform called Coursera, which embeds short quizzes in videos to test student understanding before continuing to the next segment. She found that classroom attendance doubled when she used class time for group problem0solving sessions instead of lectures.
ISTE has just published a book called Flip Your Classroom and additional information is available on the website: http://
EdX (https://www.edx.org/)
Check out the free courses from EdX universities (including Berkeley, Harvard, and MIT)
Fine App-earances:
Check out the top 7 productivity apps, as suggested by success.com
Phew! And now for some Comic Relief…
Want to some free tools for online comic creation for students? Here are a few options which are used by a local college:
http://www.makebeliefscomix.
http://marvel.com/games/play/
(takes a moment to load)
http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/
Socrates Wouldn’t Trust the Web. Should We Trust Him?
http://bigthink.com/learning-from-the-past/socrates-wouldnt-trust-the-web-should-we-trust-him
http://techland.time.com/2012/09/18/50-best-websites-2012/?iid=tl-main-lede#introduction-2
Questions No One Knows the Answers to – Chris Anderson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9vnuaPGxrg&list=UUsooa4yRKGN_zEE8iknghZA&index=49&feature=plcp
Your words, your input…..
Please remember your links, your thoughts, your resources, your conferences/events are important to this blog if you have something you wish to have featured drop me a note jmikton@isp.cz a week before the first day of the month, I will make sure it is featured in our November issue edition.
have a good month!
John Mikton
http://beyonddigital.org/