A Short Jaunt to Learning 2.013 Singapore

Getting to Singapore for the Learning 2.013 conference involved a very long flight, but well worth the effort. After working in Asia for 8 years and attending the Learning2 conference in its infancy, I know that it continues to evolve and simply gets better and better every year. There's certainly nothing like it in Europe, where I am now. And organizing a conference around cohorts who share similar roles, issues, concerns and successes just makes too much sense - how come other conferences do not do this? These are the reasons that I still tell people when they ask me why I have come so far for a conference. Plus the learning - my learning.

I used to say that being an AP Computer Science examiner and going to the exam reading every year was the best professional development that I ever did. I still look back fondly at those week-long trips to South Carolina to sit in a heavily air conditioned room for hours on end, learning a rubric, teaching it to others, and grading a single question hundreds of times over, day after day. Add in the regular feeding times every two hours, and you have a landlocked cruise ship experience where the only activity is grading exams. So why was it so good? Why did I do it year after year until the College Board retired me as an international examiner? Because of the people who were there and the learning that took place. The best of the best CS teachers were all there - trading ideas, talking shop and best practice specific to CS education, and looking behind at the trends and ahead to where we are all collectively going. It was really hard, exhausting and mentally challenging work, but the growth and learning that you came away with in a week was phenomenal. But I don't grade AP exams any more - I no longer teach the course and they cut-back on bringing in international teachers due to costs.

But this is how I see the Learning2 conference now - hard work and a long ways to go, but filled with learning and growth. Last year's conference was special as I was able to take the entire coaching team to my old school in China (Western Academy of Beijing) and show them around the city. This year was the first time Learning2 has moved out of China and I was also able to have reunions with both BISS and WAB folks that I used to work with. Funny that, as I am writing this while on vacation in Istanbul where we are having a week-long reunion with old friends and colleagues at Robert College.

My main takeaways from this year's conference revolved around: finding balance and practising mindfulness with students when it comes to technology use; creating a basic photography mini-course at my school which will help students become better creators and producers; gathering some new ideas and tweaking some old ones for updating how we deliver technology PD; employing cognitive coaching techniques when working with faculty in my role as a tech coach; and giving back to the wider community through two workshops that I presented which were well attended and received. Perhaps the most exciting development from the conference is that Learning 2.014 Africa is now in the works for next year, which I hope to get involved in at the organizing committee level - again, a lot of hard work but with big rewards in the end.  

See you in Addis Ababa and Bangkok next year!