On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending, and keynoting, at the inaugural #edchatnz conference at Hobsonville Point Secondary School.
Anyone following the trending tag in the Twitter stream would have had a taste of the excitement, the richness of the programme being offered, the breadth of the topics and the variety of approaches that, I felt, added a fresh twist on the usual unconference, such as:
- book groups and book swaps, sharing educational research
- face-to-face connections that blended conversation with tweets
- the school as ‘live’ on the first day of the conference, nicely blogged about by Maurie, the Principal: HPSS -a high-vis school.
- the ‘ground up’ thirst for a gathering of souls who usually only connect online – and the groundswell of support for this user-driven event
- the self-chosen, unconference streams mixed with the more traditional hands-on workshops.
- options to self-cater, or not.
- keynotes that were short and thought-provoking (I hope;) as well as punchy.
A huge paki paki to Danielle Myburgh for her drive and energy, Philippa Antipas, Mel Moore, Matt Nicoll, & Alyx Gillett, Heather Eccles, Sonya Van Schaijik.
My keynote: Purpose-ready learners
For those who are interested, I keynoted on ‘how we can grow purpose-ready students’…and here it is, captured in the words of those who were there:
Connected Educator Month NZ-Aotearoa
I was also delighted by the enthusiasm and engagement in Connected Educator Month! The session was really well attended, with a rich vareiety of ideas and events pledged before the hour was up.
karen spencer 