MS Innovative Teacher’s Conference
Below is the Video made for the Student Forum (Takingitglobal) at the Innovative Teachers Conference (Kuala Lumpur) last month.
I was lucky enough to attend the conference as a teacher/ observer accompanying our NZ student representative – Marcus Gibbs. Marcus was our NZ student representative in the Student Forum running alongside the Conference, and an excellent ambassador. I may be a little biased because Marcus is part of a group of wonderful students (aged 10 -17 ) that I’ve been working with over the past 2 years ,and lately as part of a group working with the MS PIL Innovative Schools Pilot Project. The opportunity to participate at Kuala Lumpur has been ‘icing on the cake for us’ and I can’t thanks Pete Sommerville, Annick Jansen , Heurisko and Microsoft enough for facilitating the opportunity.
A large part of our MS PIL project objectives have focused on sharing Student Voice about necessary changes to schooling and the needs of 21st Century learners. Particularly the growing need for students to work purposefully on authentic learning tasks, with their peers, their teachers and their communities (local and global), as more effective partners in learning. Participation in the initial Takingitglobal student forum offered a perfect opportunity to involve some of the project’s senior students in discussion around these topics with students from all over the Asia Pacific region. Five of my students took part and ALL became engaged and made thoughtful and relevant contributions to the ongoing discussion. They all commented about the changed perspectives they have gained from making connections with students from such a range of backgrounds, and differing life experiences, (students were aged 16 -22). We had many group discussions, which included the younger students, about the way schooling was approached elsewhere ie. how their lives were surprisingly similar and how different. One deep discussion arose from the struggle many students faced around the chance to receive a ‘good’ education. How it is not a right, but a privilege, to be offered rich opportunities for learning and facilitation by innovative and effective teachers. The students are still in contact with people across Asia Pacific that they have met through Takingitglobal and some are building strong friendships as a result of the connections they have made.
Marcus was chosen as our NZ student representative and was fortunate to meet face to face with 15 students from the Asia Pacific Region (selected from the forum) supported by 5 mentors as well as Michael Furdyk amd Katherine Walraven. The connections had already been made online, and to me (the not-very impartial observer 
,the friendships appeared instantly. By Tuesday morning we were sitting in the Hotel foyer fiddling with my ‘broken’ brand new laptop and going over Anh’s detailed project proposal (Ahn was Marcus’ roommate from Vietnam, studying in Japan). We were joined by Anwar from Bangladesh and went exploring the markets together for the afternoon – Anwar turned out to be a great bargainer. We did our bit to support the Global economy and met up with Shobanna from Malaysia (Marcus had arranged to meet her) and Michael Furdyk on our return to the hotel.
Michael and Katherine played an impressive role as excellent hosts and mentors. Throughout the conference the students talked to me enthusiastically about their projects, their plans to make a difference in education and in the WORLD!!! All felt hugely grateful for the opportunity to meet together and more importantly – they felt affirmed, enthused and supported in their plans. Throughout the conference I was delighted by their interactions with each other. The students greeted each other like old and valued friends, and were extremely curious and tolerant about each other’s backgrounds, eccentricities and life experiences.
The student forum ran separately to the Teacher conference but both came together for a question and answer session at the beginning of the conference and the student presentations concluded the conference. Marcus was one of three students chosen to participate in a daunting Q & A session with the full conference delegates and Malaysian dignitaries – he did a great job and made everyone in the NZ contingent proud !
Before leaving NZ Marcus and I worked on a short video with the senior students from the Splice project, to present to the student forum. The other students in our MS PIL Project (SPLICE) had indignantly pointed out that you didn’t have to be 17 to have an opinion !!!! Consequently they were very keen to have their voices heard at the student forum. So, several students worked on written statements and Marcus filmed them expressing their opinions. We threw an explanatory introduction in with Powerpoint and Marcus experimented with MS ‘Marvin’ to add a speaking character linking the bits together. Marcus organized an informal haka from the boys at the end as a challenge to “challenge our respected teachers”.
The video was so well received by the student group that after their project presentations to the conference delegates, the video was used to close the whole conference (and so, much to the delight of the Australian teachers, … we finished with a Haka LOL).
Reflections
1. I’ve had several emails from students I met and worked with in KL, who would like to keep in touch and continue sharing their work . This is a great feeling and it makes me wonder about other possibilities. Anyone recommend any working examples or sites (other than TIG) where students can link up with teachers ???
2. During the teacher conference we all had a great time collaborating on an inquiry project in mixed teams. I was very fortunate to work with 4 innovative and dedicated educators (it was an Innovative Teachers conference, duh, so no surprises there) ; Terry from Singapore, Sutima from Thailand, Amanda from Canada and Jin from Korea. We enjoyed working together immensely and were very pleased with the unit of work and resources produced, so as a result we’d discussed collaborating again on a future project of some sort. At this stage some of us have connected up through Facebook, so it will be interesting to see what we can share from this point.
3. A highlight of the conference had to be getting to know our NZ contingent: the 4 innovative Teachers chosen to represent their colleagues globally. Deirdre, Jo, Michael and Michelle. As part of the conference each country’s teacher representatives were judged to select one teacher to represent their nation at the world conference in Brazil. The judging consisted of a brief interview and examination of a poster explaining their work. There was plenty of competition among other contingents but, as far as our team was concerned, the prize was in being selected to attend at Kuala Lumpur. These guys were equally special educators and should be sharing their ideas and expertise around nationally! As a follow-up I’m hopeful we can organise a Waikato workshop to showcase their work and inspire a few more of our colleagues !
