TheFlippedScientist

So after travelling for a couple of months during the summer break, I finally have time to sit down and process my experience at ISTE 2017. So for those that do not know the ISTE Conference & Expo is recognized globally as the most comprehensive educational technology conference in the world. The ISTE conference is designed to engage attendees in hands-on learning, exchanging ideas and networking with like-minded thinkers seeking to transform learning and teaching. This year the annual event was held in San Antonio, Texas and attracted over 23,000 attendees and industry representatives, including teachers, technology coordinators, administrators, library media specialists, teacher educators and policymakers. So what were the main thoughts I took away from the conference? #1 – Sometimes ISTE forgets there is an I in their name. One of the first sessions I attended was on global collaboration. What really surprised me was the emphasis this collaboration took from the p

Recently I managed to obtain a copy of the Ditch that Homework by Matt Miller and Alice Keeler with its manifesto on making homework obsolete. Straight off the bat, I would say I would like to make the word home work obsolete as we are wanting to create learners not just workers, so I prefer the term home learning . There is little doubt that globally schools find home learning a challenge. In my home country New Zealand, Karori Normal has banned traditional home learning as it causes too much stress for parents and students and was seen by educators as not actually helping them learn. At Wanganui Intermediate students are expected to spend up to 40 minutes on home learning after school, however just like at Karori Normal staff are unsure if such a strategy has much impact on their learning. Principal Charles Oliver states: “We do it for two reasons. Firstly so the children become self-managing learners, and secondly because parents like it. Parents judge a school pa