Ulearn 2016 Day 1

On Tuesday a group of us arrived in Rotorua for ULearn 2016. The first presentation we attended was to support Matt, Karen and Nic who presented their experiences as 3rd year teachers in open air classes.

Wednesday was the official Ulearn opening/welcome at the Energy Events Centre. We were treated to a Kapa Haka performance from local students.

Larry Rosenstock - was the first guest speaker from the USA. He had an interesting background in carpentry, law and education. He talked about disproving the idea that certain children are only good for certain things. The following movie is called 'The Lie' which he shared with the audience.

He made another interesting comment about art. He said not to just look at the art created by a child, but to look at the background of the child who created it. He also talked about learning through collaboration. This is another movie that he shared which I enjoyed watching. 

He said that the purpose of knowledge is to transform it - not to regurgitate information or do rote learning. He questioned why we do not integrate different subjects, and solve real problems with an authentic audience. He talked about the invention and reinvention of knowledge.

Hour of Code:

This workshop was run by the team from OMG Tech. Some of their goals includes lifting participation by girls and Maori and Pacific students in computer science. Basically they gave advice on how to set up the 'Hour of Code' event in our schools. Then we were given an opportunity to practice coding on this site https://code.org/learn.

Keynote speaker - John Couch

This speaker talked about Apple's leadership model and their mission to have one computer per person. Their model is based on relationships. He talked about Education vs Learning and how the two are different. Technology should be used to do something in a classroom that you can’t do without tech. Kids see tech as an environment not a tool. He asserted that the curriculum should be delivered via apps

Their vision is that every student is uniquely gifted and their needs should be catered for. Their mission is to create a personal learning environment for all students.

He said that kids should be creators of content - not simply consumers of knowledge.