E2 Conference

I had originally planned to blog daily but the rich connections and learning conversations took precedence. This blog is a small snippet of my experience.

E2 conference brought together educators from around the world to celebrate their work and to empower them with ideas and resources they could develop further.

It was a privilege to travel with team NZ- amazing lot of superstars championing teaching and learning in their classrooms daily.

Anne Taylor (NZ Microsoft lead) Nikkie Laing, Ruby Huang, Bridget Crooks, Gaye Bloomfield, Chhaya Narayan, Wilj Dekkers

The Ozzie team connected well with us kiwis and it was fabulous knowing them better. This is just the start of some amazing professional connections between the 2 teams.

Team NZ with Lynette, Deanne and Darren

Highlights from keynote sessions:

Thank you for challenging my thinking Anthony Salcito on purposeful learning for the 21st Century.What can I do differently and what can I improve on to bring global citizenship into my classroom?

Stephen Reid– you challenged me with gamification and I have been left wondering with the possibilities that we can bring into our classroom whether it is chemistry, science or history. The urge to see this in real seems more feasible now. Looking forward to the Scotland, NZ collaboration.

 

With Stephen Reid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The STEM underground Maker fair was a place I would have loved to spend more time with but unfortunately group challenge beckoned. Luckily I managed to bring with me some resources that I look forward to sharing with my science department.

The group challenge was tricky given varying levels of expertise in my group. It was a great learning experience to be challenged by language difficulties and true collaboration in getting the task done. Despite not winning we all were winners at the end of the project as we had great teamwork and support for each other. We had an awesome MIE fellow Francisco Tupy as our supervisor who I look forward to learning more from.

Olga (Russia), Sakda (Thailand) and Katri (Finland). Somporn (Thailand) was super kind in letting us use his space to finish our project. Thank you:)

Breakout sessions continued to challenge my thinking as a practitioner.

Francisco Tupy- you made gamification and minecraft look so easy. The opportunity provided to students challenges their visual and spatial thinking in addition to the subject content knowledge. This is TPCK at its best and SAMR at the redefinition level. Thank you Brian Aspinall for inspiring us with Minecraft in Education.

The practical use of Onenote in the classroom was a session I was looking forward to. Lara Dabbagh your session was inspirational and challenging. You opened the possibilities of Onenote unbeknown to me and I look forward to trying them out myself.

Learning Market place brought together best practice and expertise from around the world. It was heartening to hear teachers speak about their students and how they have impacted their learning whether it is through Onenote, gaming, digital citizenship or outreach to the community through project work. More time to visit every booth in the learning market place would have been a bonus.

A significant highlight for me was having met Mike Tholfsen  who I would consider the champion for Onenote. Without his perserverance Onenote’s full potential may not have been known. Having personally discovered Onenote in 2007 I was intrigued by the investment of resources into this tool which I would consider a much superior tool for education.

Awards night with Mike Tholfsen

Who Owns the Learning-discovering a common understanding with Mike Tholfsen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My blog does not fully capture what I experienced nor how this has shaped my thoughts as a practitioner. I am grateful to have been selected to attend E2 in Budapest in 2016 as I am taking a lot back with me to share and extend my own teaching practice. Thank you Microsoft for making this possible and celebrating the hard work and best practice of educators around the world.

E2 Day 1

Day 1 of E2 has finally arrived. I decided to take a quick walk to the Szent Istvan Bazilika as registration desk had not opened yet.

It was a sight of grandeur only to be marveled at. Not being able to enter I decided to return back to the hotel only to get terribly lost. The 15 minute return trip resulted in an almost 40 minute walk.

I enthusiastically arrived back at the hotel to be pleasantly surprised that registration had not started and I ended up being the first to register for E2..yaaay!

I was thrilled to meet the Indonesian team following registration- what a neat and friendly team indeed.  Looking forward to getting to know these lovely ladies better and learning from like-minded individuals @Amiroh_Adnan @fitasukiyani @NenyJos

Quick trip to the mall followed by dinner with teamNZ. Looking forward to Day 2 already.

Budapest

In January  of this year I was invited to travel to Budapest, Hungary for annual E2 conference. Surely I was excited about what lay ahead.On March 3rd, 2016 Nikkie Laing and I flew from Auckland to Hungary via Duabi.

We had a couple of days ahead of us to explore the sights, smells and sound of Budapest. Surely much has to be said about the richness of the culture here. We explored the hidden treasures of Ecseri market- worth visiting if you are in Budapest.

The National Hungary Museum was also worth visiting which offers a deep insight about the history of its people.

We saw the famous Danube bend and visited castle ruins. Much of Hungary has preserved remains of buildings from gladiator times and wars- it was a real step back into history for me personally.

Hungary is well know for its cuisine such as goulash which I am yet to try. Shopping malls have been not too indifferent from other parts of the world except for the significant language barrier. What a neat opportunity to visit Budapest- thank you so much Microsoft for this life experience.