I am currently at Apple’s Innovative Technology Schools Conference at UTS, Sydney, Australia. This is the 18th year the conference has run, and my first visit, so I’m hoping to reflect on what I’ve done this year and work out ways that I can better utilise our 1:1 environment in 2008.
Today’s keynote was delivered by Stephanie Hamilton, Apple’s global education K-12 rep.
She began by discussing how Australia was in an interesting educational landscape following Labor’s election win as the government has indicated that education (in its words an “education revolution”) is the no. 1 national priority, see this post

The keynote theme was “Keeping up in a changing world” and for anyone interested in the ever-evolving nature of the read/write web this is an apt subject because staying abreast of innovation is probably one of the main challenges.

She discussed how the challenges include “how are you going to take it to the masses”, as there are “pockets of expertise” but the challenge is “spreading expertise so that it is systemic within schools” and that “systemic instances of success are the thing to look for…”

Stephanie discussed how people often refer to the “biggest challenge is getting teachers ready for technology”. She pointed out how many people have been using technology since the 80s- “how long does it take? Why isn’t it moving to general audience?”
Challenge of keeping up – you think I’m really good at this but it’s so yesterday

Much of the presentation was about Change:

– the only constant in life
– The road to the 21st century is paved with
– Lifelong learning implies

I would add: Change is the only thing you can depend on

“Teaching as the only “risk averse” occupation”

Changing technology
Changing learner
Changing world

She discussed the ideas of the usual names rolled at conferences – Daniel Pink, Wikinomics, The Long Tail, The Wisdom Crowds, (think Wikippedia/Twitter) with the “did you know” video allusions about how many honour students China has etc. – am so bored by this line of thinking… anyway
She also discussed the new skills required in emering economies and how Berkely Engineering grads now must major in social science first

New economy – personalisation

One of the best quotations (from an Australian student) was that “school is like taking a QANTAS flight – sit down, face forward, strap yourself in and turn off all your electronic devices …”
“If your lucky, the trip will be relevant. If not, you’ll be able to resume your life in 3-5 hours”

The best part of this keynote, because if you read blogs etc., you would have heard most of it before, was that the challenge is to embrace the “ad hoc” nature of the read/write web and to build engaging learning environments. “The characterising features of these are that they are highly creative, ad hoc netoworks – IT guys don’t like ad hoc” – this is whole notion of PLNs –

Stephanie pointed out how most people find “ad hoc scary – everything is [should be] siloed and locked down” i.e schools desire that everything is hosted “in house” and teachers there will be some magical piece of software that will serve all your needs and you won’t keep learning new programs/engines/OS etc. but  anyone who has watched the web 2.0 phenomon knows there “ain’t” no such thing. It appears that change is defining feature of our tech-driven society.

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