Saturday, October 11, 2014

Some folks up in treetops just look to see the sights (The Grateful Dead)

My day three highlights package contains:

Best presenter of the day - Mark Treadwell. He's so damned likable and he stirs things up - to wit: maths as a subject is dead!

Best sights - the beautiful gardens in Rotorua. The township and shops are weird (no central hub or landmarks), but the gardens are spot on!

And so the conference came to an end.

Of course, the real challenge of being away at a conference starts when school hits again come Monday morning. Remembering all those big ideas and the inspiring thoughts that occurred during the keynote by...what was her name again?

I came to the ulearn conference with a goal, or maybe an aim...an objective? Yes - I came to ulearn with an objective - to get some validation and inspiration for our proposed changes to our senior English courses for 2015.

Oh boy did I get that! The talk of individuation (not a pretty word but a great ideology), Universal Design for Learning (UDL sounds like a finance company but is really the nuts and bolts of individuation), and the big project work at Hobsonville Point School were all directly relevant to our plans.

Hosannah!!

And so - it's back to school on Monday and some meetings with the English staff about where we go from here - not just to see the sights, but to put ideas into action!

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