Presenting my ISTE experience to our B.O.T

Recently, I had the privilege to travel to Chicago ISTE 2018 and at our recent
Board meeting, I had the privilege to present my key takeouts to them.  Here is my presentation:

One of the biggest things I had learnt in Chicago was that being with the right people who are as passionate about the teaching and learning as you are, has made me feel valued as an educator.  Thank you BOT for this amazing opportunity and I know the benefits will filter through to supporting our kids in their educational journeys. 

My Iste 2018 Experience - Part THREE: Workshops and interactive sessions

There were plenty of exciting sessions and workshops on offer at ISTE but I wanted to focus on a number of key areas.

• How schools integrated across curriculum areas with a focus on project based learning.
• Raising achievement in boys writing
• Creating interesting, collaborative units for our juniors (or middle school)

The first session I attended was called 'Leveraging Student choice in the Middle school classroom'.  Our presenters shared resources they'd created gathered from the brainstorms and choices provided by their students.  They went on to create relevant resources and units from these students choices. 

What I found interesting was during our sharing sessions with people next to us, I found there were so many different platforms that people used in their teaching and learning, that I wondered how a child who may move schools or a teacher who changes school could even keep.  I had one lady on my left using google classroom, another using microsoft 365 and other people using totally different platforms - it was like the united nations of digital teaching and learning, no one spoke the same language!

There were so many more interactive sessions that were interesting that I need to create a post for each one!

My Iste 2018 Experience - Part TWO: The Grand Expo hall

The Exhibition hall is the biggest sales yard I have ever been too!  There are over 5,000 people involved in presenting and showcasing the latest digital tools and technology for the future of education and there was not enough time to see even half of the exhibitions!  Below are some of the awesome stalls I had a chance to visit which I found exciting and mind-blowing at the same time.  Much of what was shown were things that could change and alter systems in our teaching and learning and which I thought could be more relevant for our senior leaders and board members to address (thankfully we had the right experts with us).  I took a picture of my crazy collection of swag at the end and I am thankful for the opportunity to see where the future of teaching and learning is heading.

We made our Wonder Workshop Dash toy shoot a 3 pointer!

Project Unicorn was one of my favourite exhibitions

 Some Google time

Good to see I can use my SMART board properly now!

Thanks for the goody bag Microsoft!

Putting our photo on the board as the only Polynesians!

A really interesting presentation that supports students creating a digital family tree.

Using avatars in real time.

Hapara in the house!

My collection of swag (I forgot to add another couple of t-shirts darnit)