Global Education & IB Dunia Conferences – My Reflections

I admire anyone who shares with others openly and publicly. I think teachers are a great group to do this with.

So I just finished 2 presentations in 4 days. The first was on Collaborative Tools for Global Communication and Reflection at The Global Education Conference #globaled11. If you are not familiar with this conference it is held for 24 hours a day for a week and it is worldwide. It is free and uses Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate) as its platform. The second was an IB Dunia Conference at The British International School Jakarta which featured all 3 IB programmes.  The theme this year at this conference was Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum and I presented Web Tools and Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum. Thanks to Ibu Vini, our Bahasa Indonesian teacher for supporting the presentation.

Both conferences were connected for me in a way, the notion of  collaborating globally and thinking about thinking.

The 2 breakout sessions I saw by @marycollins21 on Language in the PYP and @interepidteacher on Digital Storytelling were both inspiring and informative. Both had elements of sharing and reflecting and sharing ideas.  I took away many ideas that I can use in my own practice to help learners connect to others. To share their own experiences and stories.

Im always my own worst critic when it comes to my presentations. My goal is to have the participants walk away with something, a new idea or way to teach or share with others.  I hope I fulfilled my goal. My mind wasn’t on task for the latter half of the GEC online as about 30 minutes into the presentation the school nurse brought my 4 year old to my office- she’d been vomiting! Great timing I know.

I’m always very grateful that people even show up to my presentations or workshops. I am seriously honored and humbled at the same time. I love the sharing that goes on at these things, and the connections that are created. We are all educators there for the same purpose. We are learners and share our expertise and experience with each other. We are all collaborators on an international level and thats what I love most about sharing. I like presenting or facilitating because I love sharing.  I get alot out of reflecting later on about what participants said or did. I prefer to take an idea and go away for a day or two and come back with ideas. I find running workshops challenging. My learning style is not one of ‘answering questions on the spot’. I like thinking time. I should say I NEED thinking time. One thing that I’ve realised is that its okay to say you do not know, and get back to the person.

I love sharing, whether you call it presenting or a workshop. I love the interaction and the learning. We are all learners. Sharing ideas.