This academic year I have been actively shifting towards online collaborations and communications. Being based here in China adds an interesting perspective due to a number of Web 2.0 services not always being available. However challenging this may be at times, for me, it is extremely important to prepare for “tomorrow’s ideas” using “today’s tools” and to be part of a global community; how else can I help prepare students for tomorrow’s world? With the Shanghai Learning 2.010 done and dusted, I now look towards four conferences (two f2f and two online) that I am involved with.
The 2010 K-12 Online Conference is now underway. It is a conference for educators interested in innovative ways that Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. Julie Lindsay and I will be presenting presenting our experiences six weeks into our InsideITGS project: “Cyber-Students Share their Connected Learning”. The presentation video is scheduled for October 21st. Our teaser promotional video is here.
InsideITGS a collaboration that started between our two schools in China, Western Academy of Beijing and Beijing (BISS) International School. The aim of Inside ITGS is to join IB Diploma Information Technology in a Global Society (ITGS) students together in a flattened virtual learning environment thereby providing enhanced opportunities for cultural awareness and global collaboration as well as explore and evaluate IT tools and systems in an authentic and social context.
After the success of our first Beijing Learning Summit last year, we are busy organising the Beijing Learning Summit 2010, a technology conference hosted at WAB for teachers by teachers on Saturday November 13th. This year’s theme was inspired by one of our presenters ‘Ideas for tomorrow, tools for today’. The idea is to give teachers practical ideas to use in their classrooms straightaway whilst also thinking about the classrooms of the future. To keep up the conversations flowing, we are having ‘lunch-on-the-run’ where participants will pick up their packed lunch and join ‘unconferenced’ conversations.
The week after, from November 15 -20 is the online Global Education Conference. Held in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days, the conference is a collaborative and world-wide community effort to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities and initiatives. My role as one of the mentor chairs has been to collaborate with our team of five to develop a mentoring program, the aims of which are to provide conference participants the best possible experience by helping participants choose and get into Elluminate sessions in addition to assisting participants who are interested in taking part in collaborative global education projects or beginning a project. More details about this program is here.
Finally, I will be joining the Flat Classroom Conference in an official capacity as an ADE and co-leader of a cohort. The Flat Classroom Conference will be held at Beijing (BISS) International School from February 25-27, 2011.
Points to ponder:
- What does it mean to participate effectively in an online conference?
- What will your classroom look like in 10 years time?
- In what ways are you preparing your students to be online learners?
- What does it mean to be part of a global community? What are the challenges?
