May 2015

Welcome to the May edition of the ECIS Technology/Innovation/Design Committee blog. With only a few weeks left in the school year for many of us, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We wish you a smooth and productive end-of-year wherever you may find yourself.

This month, our thoughts also go out to those affected by the massive earthquake that struck Nepal last week. The nature of our connected global community means that whenever there is a significant tragedy anywhere in the world, we may often know someone directly affected by the event. Even if this is not the case, with our global connections, tragedy elsewhere often has local impact.

Please remember that your input is valuable to the entire ECIS Technology/Innovation/Design community. If you are interested in contributing an article, or have ideas, resources, links, or information about upcoming professional development opportunities that you would like to share, please send them to me at apreis@aischool.org a week before the first day of the month and I will be sure to highlight them in the next edition of the blog.

Alan Preis
@apreis
On behalf of the ECIS Technology/Innovation/Design Interest Group.

Tech Cafe at ECIS November Conference

ECIS are looking for volunteers to manage the Tech Cafe at the November conference to assist conference delegates with technology. Volunteers will earn 150 Euros for each shift, but still have to register for the conference (the registration fee is not waived). If you or anyone you know are interested in helping out for one or more two-hour shifts, please contact Ioana Crisan at ioanacrisan@ecis.org.

International School Survey: Digital Life & Learning

The Digital Life & Learning Survey is designed to gather authentic and relevant data from parents, students, faculty staff and administrative staff. This data will provide a 360-degree insight into the attitudes, beliefs and technology usage patterns of key stakeholders within the school community. It is designed to give accurate and thought provoking insight into many aspects of the use of technology cross correlated between the groups.

The tool not only provides information on values and beliefs about technology in education but also real information about how your community perceives the deployment and actual use of a range of technologies in the school and home setting. The data will aid international schools in understanding the current use of technology at home and school as well as supporting planning across the entire spectrum of technology use from systems and services through to teaching and learning.

Participation in the survey is free and participating schools will gain access to the full aggregated research report. Schools who are interested in a detailed review of their own data can pay a fee to access their own unique data. This report will be segregated and presented as a comparison to the overall international school data for either their country or against the overall international results. For more information, please visit the project site at http://digitallifeandlearning.org/.

Professional Development

Digital Evolution Un-conference – Düsseldorf – May 8 & 9 2015

Project Zero Atlanta

CASIE and Atlanta International School are hosting Project Zero Atlanta, May 10 – 15, 2015. With an over-arching theme of Think-Create-Innovate, the Atlanta conference will invite educators to reflect deeply on ways to build and sustain engaging, enriching and rigorous learning opportunities; to encourage problem-finding and problem-solving; and to develop the disposition to act to make the world a better place. See the following link for more details: http://www.casieonline.org/events/pz/atl.

Flat Connections Updates