One day at the VITTA 2010 conference

Yesterday, I attended the second day of the conference of the Victorian Information Technology Teachers' Association - VITTA. I could not attend both days because of other commitments I had at school. My impression was beyond good! Here are some details:

1. Keynote: Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision Australia. Reverend Costello (he's an ordained minister) spoke about leadership. He spoke about leaders, and by extension teachers, tapping into people's needs and curiosities. He gave examples from the story of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Clinton and others. Leaders, he argued, knew how to honour people's negative energies and then reframe them to create a positive outcome. One of the things he said was that a great force in the world is parents making sacrifices for their children. He wondered why our leaders didn't tap into that to make education, and the status of teachers, their highest priority.
2. Give GameMaking a Go. Three students from Mount Waverley Primary school, accompanied by their inspirational teacher, Leeanne King, gave us a tutorial in GameMaker. They were bright, confident and unbelievable articulate. I was so impressed I tweeted: "I would definitely replace me with that grade 4 boy".
3. 1:1 program in Sandhurst Catholic Schools: The presentation was very informative and would have been very revealing had my school not gone through what it did in the last year. The speakers went through costing, choice of laptops and curriculum considerations. They were very thorough.
4. Prizes for videos of different categories. Although I haven't done it yet, I intend to check them out on classnet.com.au
5. Afternoon keynotes: Adam Brice and Paul Callaghan. An inspirational deputy principal of a primary school and a freelance game developer. Wow is all I will say about these guys' presentations. Check out what the students in Adam's school on the website: ischool.net.au. Paul made his slides available on his own blog: www.paulcallaghan.net
6. Free session. I had a free session somehow! I used it to go around the trade show and talk to people 
7. Edmodo. This was a hands on workshop by John Pearce. Check out his blog. He keeps many helpful links and tutorials.

All in all, I was very glad to attend. The networking was great. I learned a few surprising facts about some university offerings which may help us extend some of our students. Thanks VITTA for a great event.

I hope to go again next year and to see many more innovative educators.