Today is Monday, and yesterday I had the soil of both islands on my feet. I headed down to Christchurch with some teachers from my school, Sue, Ange and Aime-lee for a conference called uLearn.
It was a pretty inspiring conference – learning about the power of ICT to create powerful learning environments. Kids have been learning since before the computer (personally, I remember the first time I saw a video disk. Wow) – but now, more than ever, they need to learn how to learn. Apparently the amount of information created in the last four years is greater than the amount of information created in the last one hundred. Teaching kids how to use Microsoft Word 2004 isn’t really going to cut it – but giving them experiences that empower them to learn, be information literate and communicate in the modern world will.
Needless to say, probably more than ever before I’m inspired to be an awesome teacher. We’ll see where that leads.
A few of the really good points of uLearn:
- free coffee – like real, extra nice coffee. On the first day I think I downed eight or nine cups.
- great food. Never before have I seen gluten free food done so well. I am now heavier then before I left.
- legend workshops.
- good keynotes – I’ve never noticed this before, but the standard of verbal communication (talking head to large group of people) in mosaic (mount and l.a.) is way higher than par. The keynotes at uLearn had great content, but mosaic is pretty blessed to have some awesome world class communicators in its community.
- cool teachers. I’m especially stoked that I got to spend time with Ange, Aime-lee and Sue. They’re tops.
- helpful workshops in CSI, Umajin, Movie Editing (TV Station styles), wikis, podcasting, animation, the internet, blogging, the future and gifted kids.
- The number of pens I scored on the trade floor.
- Did I mention the free coffee?
Thursday night was a shared dinner, for 1600 delegates at the Westpac Stadium. To be honest, it was a bit like the biggest dinner you’ve ever had, on steroids.
At the end of my trip I stayed with my friends Gerry and Nomes and their son, Micah. I got to check out Christchurch (beautiful city) and snowboard on Mount Hutt (man, Ruapehu is so, so, huge, but we’ve got nothing on the mainland’s mountain ranges…
It’s really easy to get busy. Kinda like, when you’re on a hydroslide – it’s really easy to get wet. Or concust. As I write this I am at my Grandmother’s home helping out. She has cancer and it’s fairly serious. She is an amazing lady, who is an incredible grandmother and role model. Halfway between thinking about the new macs I’m setting up at school, dreams and schemes for next year, the flash opening page I’m building for partybands (and why the buttons don’t work like they should yet), planning a new website, expanding business operations and what I’m supposed to do with my mortgage – you can come to a grinding halt when you realise that these things are not important. I listened to a podcast on ted.com about how three things are needed, in equal measure, for a healthy life – work (mission – something to live for), play (no explanation necessary) and love. I’m pretty sure the first two are just to give perspective to the later (the greatest of these is love).
Busyness pales in comparison to family, both in value and in return. If only we could remember that at all times, not just amidst the dawn of crisis.
