I attended the annual International Society for Technology and Education conference, held in Philadelphia this year and participated in some excellent workshops. Tim Kaegi presented Documenting Student Agency, explaining how he utilises media to capture the process of learning. He encouraged moving beyond snapshot documentation like Twitter and using a more comprehensive approach such as timelapse video. He recommended KidCam, putting a GoPro on a student’s head or chest, suggesting that visual media is more effective than words. The examples from his classroom are simply outstanding. I will try to stay in touch with Tim as his work fits nicely with a paper I am working on with some academics and the Project Zero Reggio-inspired approach.

I also attended an excellent workshop on Self-Organised Learning Environments. Sugata Mitra’s approach was explained and then we were put through a mini-SOLE answering the question: “What is the most influential design movement?” I teamed up with two other participants and after we sat nonplussed about where to start, we began googling and talking about our thinking. Our conversation began with IDEO and design thinking, moved to modernism and constructivism, and then started to unpack early cave paintings and the design thinking needed to organise the first human communities. It gave us a great insight into the practices and possibilities of the SOLE approach and reinforced my determination to explore this pedagogy more thoroughly.

I presented a 5 minute Ignite talk to an audience of about 500. My presentation was on Mindfulness to Thrive Online, inspired by Howard Rheingold. The audience played along and I received positive feedback afterwards.

I also worked as a volunteer, helping people with directions on the final morning, which was fun. The strangest questions I was asked were: “Is there a dog entrance to the Expo Hall?” and “Will it be raining this afternoon?” I spent the entire time talking to people and laughing. Thanks Todd Kennedy for the inspiration to volunteer.