Sydney EdTech Summit Day Two

The keynote speaker this day was Kim Pollishuke and her theme was "Let's Build an Elevator to the Moon" She chose this title from her son's idea of anything being possible. The key idea from her talk that stuck in my mind was  "Don't be the flea in the jar" . She used this analogy to illustrate how a lid can metaphorically be put on possibilities to achieve. Fleas can jump to amazing heights, but when placed in a jar with a lid, they adjust their jump to not hit the lid. When the lid is taken off, the fleas continue to jump to the height of the jar, as if the lid is still in place. This challenged me to think about the students I teach, and consider what "lids" I might put on their learning, thus creating barriers to possible achievements. 
She also challenged us all to find time for ourselves and our students to pursue passions. This learning time can be incredibly powerful.

I attended three workshops on the second day of the summit:

• Apps and Tools for Making Thinking Visible - Kimberley and Lorinda
• Shifting Maths Teaching and Learning for Modern Learning - Sandra Chow
• Put Students’ Stories on the Map… Literally - Kim Pollishuke, Ontario

All three workshops focused on the use of quality apps for making learning both accessible and visible for students.
Kimberley and Lorinda shared a variety of apps including Answer Garden, the Visible Thinking website, Flipgrid, the Talk and Comment Chrome extension, Screencastify, EdPuzzle, Peardeck, Quizlet, Canva and the Dynamic Learning Project. Peardeck is add-on for Slides and looks useful. It can be used to make Slides interactive - it can be set up with questions for students to answer or discuss in an anonymous forum.
Canva looks like a great publishing tool - it has a little more to offer than Google Docs or Drawings. Answer garden uses questions to create word cloud type answers. It was fun to use and would be useful in the classroom.
Sandra's presentation was very comprehensive. She focused on apps and sites to use for different aspects of Mathematics education - Mathematical Investigation; Consolidation; Manipulatives; Authentic Maths Problems; Coding; Game-based Learning; Media; Differentiation; Formative Assessment; Prominent Maths Thinkers; Amazing Websites; and other hot topics. Lots to process and think about...
The last workshop I attended was lots of fun. Kim's aim was to use geography tools to tell stories. She wanted use to gain an understanding of the tools and how we can share personal identity through stories using these tools. It was a hands on workshop using My Maps and Tour Creator to create stories. This would be especially great with students to create mihi and pepeha to share at the beginning of the year.

This was another great day of learning. The two days with my MIT colleagues were an awesome time of learning and fun spent with a great team of individually amazing professionals. There is a lot to reflect upon - what professional learning is going to make the biggest difference to my practice? What changes do I now need to make to my practice? What tools will make the most difference for my students? What do I share with my colleagues?