I have just attended the 21st Century Learning International conference. The conference is focused on edtech and largely aimed at international schools based in Asia. While I visited Hong Kong several times in my youth, this was the first time I have been back in 16 years. The food is still great, the energy of the city is palpable through the constant building, and it is a gentle entree to Asia – sort of a cross between Shanghai and Singapore.
There were some exceptional keynotes. Mimi Ito spoke about connected learning, education moving from a narrow pipeline metaphor to an incredibly diverse web of outside networks, and teachers’ roles as connection builders becoming even more critical.
Michael Carr-Gregg presented on technology for emotional literacy and wellbeing, using new and emerging technologies to promote mental health. He provided a plethora of sites and apps to investigate.
In the closing keynote, Patrick Green implored us to stop asking Googleable questions. Students should publish to the world, craft a digital footprint that says “Here I am!”, and aim for autonomy, mastery, and purpose, despite standardised exams. He asked us to stop giving instructions and exemplars. “Doing it the way the teacher wants is not a 21st century skill.” Patrick’s shoulder shrug video is epic.
Two panel presentations were held, and I normally run a mile from panel presentations, but these were well facilitated. I enjoyed hearing Bernard Bull speak about leadership as being the Chief Possibility Officer, storytelling, and capacity/community building. The insightful Dana Watts spoke about student voice and choice, not doing everything in silos, the importance of having students at conferences, and she asked the eloquent question – “How do we give them choice and also help them to see what they don’t know?” She also spoke about creating a culture of sharing so teachers feel safe, transparent classrooms, and ePortfolios for students and teachers.
Throughout the conference it was refreshing to see presenters utilising interactive approaches in a very natural manner – from forming small teams to tweet out a response, to using slido.com for the audience to ask and rate each other’s questions.
I attended an interesting presentation on the changing professional learning culture at Ormiston College in Brisbane. Tamara and Brett spoke about the need to invest in people not just buildings, and the importance of skill sets and mindsets that will enable students to thrive into the future. They discussed their Learning Innovations Leadership Committee, Big Idea Projects, Genius Hour, how they have developed a culture of innovation through their innovation grants, their community of practice cross-school collaborations, flipped staff PD through the use of online modules, and sharing and building networks within the global community. I will be visiting Ormiston College in May, so it was good to get a heads up about the great work taking place there.
My key takeaways – Get students blogging and publishing for authentic audiences. Self-directed learning is descending on us in force and I need to experiment with ways to incorporate Genius Hour-type learning in my own classes. Student voice is a global theme and this reinforces our current school-wide focus. The concept of a culture of sharing and transparent classrooms was also very reinforcing. I’m now wondering whether we would get more out of our annual staff fellowships if we rebranded them as ‘innovation fellowships’?
Many thanks to 21st Century Learning International and particularly Graeme Deuchars and Avinash Dadlani for an amazing time in Hong Kong. You are doing wonderful things for global education. I would also like to really thank Pearson, who are the Patron Sponsors for the Global Innovation Awards, for their generosity in sponsoring my attendance at the conference and supporting global innovation in education. When you put educators like this in the same room together and forge connections, great things can result, so thanks so much for seeing the value in what we are all doing. #teacherpower