Presentation Title:

Building Capacity and Supporting Innovative Practice

Presenter:

Karen Ward - Central Valley Educational Leadership Institute, California
Travis Smith - Expanding Learning Horizons

Session Type:

Keynote Session

Presentation Description:

When we look at who might drive the 'revolution', we too often stop short of addressing the urgent need to create a more flexible, and relevant framework for what we might think of as contemporary professional learning; and underpinning this is the need for more shared practice, supported by coaching. This session explores these ideas with three different perspectives that are having a significant impact on how teachers innovative and explore new classroom practices.

Presentation Title:

Did I miss the revolution, or is the best yet to come?

Presenter:

Session Type:

Keynote Session

Presentation Description:

As we come to the end of the first phase of what was a government initiated brand called the Digital Education Revolution, it is timely for us to call on several of our schools, who have been leading the move to provide a technology-rich 1 to 1 learning environment for their students, and have them share their insights. In particular, this session will seek to highlight lessons learned, unintended..and intended consequences..and most notably expectations that they might each of for what the next five years might bring,..and whether it genuinely might bring glimpse of that Revolution.

Presentation Title:

Emerging technologies that will challenge our thinking

Presenter:

Lawrence Crumpton - Microsoft

Session Type:

Keynote Session

Presentation Description:

When we think of technology-rich learning environments, we naturally think of every child with their own laptop, of 1 to 1, of being connected. But what of the extraordinary array of emerging technologies that are now not only available, but also affordable. Natural User Interfaces and Cloud Computing are just two that will impact on schools in the very near future, and yet we know so little about them, or most importantly what their relevance might be for learners.

While it is always necessary to keeping a balance from the distractions that new technologies can present, it is equally important to understand their potential. In this keynote, Laurence explore some of these emerging technologies, and their possible impact in our schools.

Presentation Title:

Inquiry-based learning & other contemporary pedagogies in a technology-rich World

Presenter:

Diana Laufenberg - Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy
Mike Valentine - Head of Middle School, Hale, WA

Session Type:

Keynote Session

Presentation Description:

If the Revolution is ever reality, then it will start and finish with pedagogy. But which pedagogy will lead the way. In this personalized, customized, individualized, and student-centered learning world, much is talked about, but so little initiated, let alone sustained in practice. This panel session of leading educational innovators, will explore pedagogical possibilities. It will look beyond the technology and the theory, and discuss what the practice and impact of contemporary teaching and learning is within three unique school environments.

Presentation Title:

New Media, New Kids - New Literacies, New Citizens

Presenter:

Jason Ohler - University of Alaska, US

Session Type:

Keynote Session

Presentation Description:

What kinds of literacies do students need to be able to work, innovate and communicate in the modern world? How is literacy impacted by the raft of emerging social technologies?

Critically literacies must enable them to "write" the media they "read" so they can be active media creators rather than passive media consumers. Literacy has always meant being able to consume and produce the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. For centuries this has meant writing essays and reports filled with words and paragraphs. In a contemporary learning environment, this means blending words with images, sounds, music, video, and other media to create the new communication default: the multimedia collage, in the form of web pages, digital stories, YouTube creations and much more.

In this keynote, Jason will explore ways in which we can help digital kids migrate from text centrism to media collage literacy in creative, thoughtful, ways. He will discuss ways that we can help them cultivate their new media talents, adopt art as the 4th R and use storytelling to convey their ideas in rich, compelling ways. Finally he will explore ideas about how we can help them create media, stories and projects that are articulate and transformative; to help them collaborate and share their work and talents within the collaborative community of the social web.