Healthy Education

This week I was fortunate to be invited as one of the keynote speakers for the Blackboards and Bandaids conference in Brisbane. The conference is attended by welfare educators and has a range of Health and well being presenters on a variety of topics.
The Mater Children’s Hospital have conducted the conference for the past four years as part of the Mater Children Hospital School program.

I was privileged to have a short tour of the school after my keynote and workshop and visited classrooms for junior, middle and senior students. Computers are a big part of their education and the classrooms look similar to those in a normal school, only smaller for less numbers. Some students are short term, however for some; their illness necessitates a long stay. In many cases classes are conducted in the wards as some children are not well enough to leave their beds.

As I passed the emergency waiting room it was sad to see so many young children waiting to be seen by doctors, with anxious parents beside them. It made me reflect how lucky many families are to have healthy children but more important, what a wonderful job this hospital based school does. It means that most children at the hospital can feel that part of their life is still normal and that they are part of a school community, which for young children who are dealing with an illness is a very important to their coping mechanism.

Spare a thought for another wonderful part of education that we don’t often get to see.

ICT in Marlborough, New Zealand

ICT is alive and well in New Zealand. I have just spent two delightful days working with educators in Blenheim as part of the Marlborough Technology in Education Cluster. The cluster is made up of staff from two schools, Marlborough Girls College and Marlborough Boys College.
The two schools had a Teacher Only Day (TOD) to enhance the use of technology. What I found interesting was that many of the workshops on the PD day focused around technologies that children use in every-day life. For many teachers it was a chance to understand and try these technologies. While some of the session involved the use of Learning Objects, Inspiration and other classroom related software there was a strong focus on student technology.

One session focused on cell phones and learning how student text with cell phones, how to use calendars, upload images etc using the cell phone. Another focused on Flickr and how to put photos on line, while the use of iPods’ and how to find and download music was also a feature.
Teachers also had the chance to learn about Skype and how to communicate with family and friends using this low cost or free resource.
There was certainly a buzz around the schools, who jointly hosted sessions. Lunch was at the girls college and the opening keynote and closing drinks at the boy’s college, ensuring that there was no bias for locations.

The evening before over 40 educators turned up to a pre conference workshop that I delivered on the “World of Google” There was significant interest on how the different applications could be used in classrooms.

On the PD day, I delivered a keynote called “Webciting – What all the hype about web 2.0”. This was a chance to inform educators about the shift from web 1.0 to web 2.0 as well as share a range of new technologies being used in education. I followed this with reference to professional learning for educators and how the model is changing and then finished with some international research and of course some "wow" factor with some of the technologies of the future.
My first workshop focused on digital storytelling and it was great to see how excited many of the staff were who had not used this process before. Of particular note was the PE staff who are going to change the face of theory lessons with a whole range of multimedia. My second session was on web 2.0 tools, toonadoo, bubbl.us, freewebs, igoogle and more. Again there was a buzz in the room and at the end of the day, when all other sessions had finished, my group wanted to keep going. How webciting!

I also have to thank my hosts Sandy and Giles, who co-ordinated the conference from their respective schools. They were fantastic and the hospitality and the offers to go out of their way to look after me where greatly appreciated. From bbq dinners and take away, to chauffeuring me to and from the airport and school. Nothing was too much trouble, even though they had the weight of organising the event on their shoulders. Thank you.


So where are they headed. Certainly there was a good level of understanding of technology by teachers. There are the usual number of champions that I see in schools, however there was a far greater general ICT awareness and skill level as a whole staff, than in general.



With Sandy and Giles leading the way, I will expect to see some great educational outcomes coming from this school district.



(Photo: Blenheim District as my plane departed)