I have just attended the Global Ed Leadership Summit in Bangkok. This was run by 21st Century Learning International, a professional development organisation based in Hong Kong, largely aimed at Southeast Asian international schools. They first came on to my radar when I attended their conference in Hong Kong last year. The summit I just attended was exploring innovation in education. The pre-conference workshop was led by Susie Wise from Stanford’s d.school and it was worth it on its own. Susie took us through the design thinking process.
I am familiar with design thinking, however Susie’s easy facilitation made me much more comfortable with it – bias to action, fail forward, start small. It is such a good model for leading change and I’m now clearer on how I can use this with staff. Susie also outlined her work with the K12 Lab, School Retool, and while the Shadow a Student Challenge is something I have done, I need to enable our staff to participate in this more broadly. I wonder if it could fit with our coaching program?

Tim Stuart from Singapore American School presented a powerful documentary on the change process used by his school. I’m hoping to get access to a copy of the film to use with staff. It reminded me a bit of Most Likely To Succeed, but in a context much more similar to our own. Tim has also offered to Skype in with us, which I hope to arrange later on this year.

There were two panels and this conference is the only one that seems to know how to get panels right. The topics for the panels were brilliant: “Avoid the Same Mistakes We Made” and “Lone Nuts: Radical Departures From Existing Practices.” The participants on the panels were extraordinary in terms of their experience, their sense, and their honesty. Some of the speakers were: Susie Wise, Tim Stuart, Melissa Daniels (High Tech High), Jamie Steckart (Think Global School), Brett Webster (Ormiston College), and Glenn Chickering (Green School Bali).

The closing keynote was presented by John Burns, Director of Creativity and Innovation for International School Services (what a cool job!). He spoke well about leading change – create space, create time, celebrate sparks, immerse in change.

21C Learning really knows how to run fantastic conferences. They get the right people in the room, they effectively disrupt thinking, there is a heavy focus on practitioners, and there is a healthy global perspective. It has confirmed in my mind the dearth of good conferences in Australia where the void left by fading professional associations was briefly filled by corporate tech companies, though educators are quickly coming to sense the snake oil. For the price of attendance at EduTech you could get a return flight to Bangkok and attend a global conference that would expand your thinking, with a clear focus on practitioners in schools. I hope to reconnect with these amazing thinkers.

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel venue on the river in Bangkok didn’t hurt and the conference food and drinks were exceptional. I especially enjoyed a local dinner for presenters on the first evening.

I presented a workshop on The Network Wins on the final day.