Reflections on Day one of ICT Integration Conference

Hi all,

Personal

The day of a conference is always exciting.  

This time around it was added to as I am organising committee, did a presentation and it is the school that my father -in-law taught at for 35 years.  In fact a House is named after him as well, part of the room at the Northbridge Oval is dedicated to his school and international  sporting career as a Wallaby.  I had not met the current Head Master and I went into the office to introduce myself – he was at lunch.  It was worth a try.

The Conference

1. The skill level of teachers has increase a heap in the last few years.  For example, this time around there was no need to guide teachers on how to login to a Web 2.0 tool.

2.  No one was complaining that there is not enough time to be involved in learning new things.  I was pleased about that.

3.  Teachers are starting to understand and put in practice the idea that you don’t have to do everything – you can specialise in something that interests you and become a leader in that area. 

4.  Teachers are thinking more seriously about sharing.  This is a credit  to an increasing number of presenters who are prepared to share what they know and have  without be scared to do so.

5.  Finally I was pleased that people were prepared to consider Twitter and in fact a few joined up. Here is a summary of those who tweeted using #ais08. Please use #ais08 for the Conference tweets.

Really looking  forward to day two – just finished writing the introductory address for tomorrow’s Keynote Speaker Professor John Hedberg. 

cheers  Martin