Over the Chusok holiday (sort a Korean Thanksgiving), I was able to travel to China for a little vacation and some professional development. Overall the Learning 2.008 conference was a major success with teachers, administrators, vendors, and tech-geeky types of all walks of life. Clear back in February the conference developed a Ning site for exchange of information, networking, and sharing. Two things I truly love about the conference is that it focused on learning and was totally teacher-centered.
One huge event that came from the previous conference is the Shanghai Student Film Festival. Having the chance to share time with the organizers of the film festival was wonderfully rewarding. I’ve been thinking about a student film festival for years, since my time at ACI. ACI has a film festival every year, but the only participates are students from the school; the Shanghai version opens the doors to any student, anywhere. Last year they had 150 films entered and this year they expect 300 or more. The organizers share their experience and knowledge; plus, they encouraged people to have students enter films and to begin film festivals of our own. My hope is that next year KIS will be able to have a Seoul Student Film Festival.
Of course there were thousands of great ideas floating around, but I also discovered some interesting information about my school. First, I’m very lucky to work in a school with an administration that truly believes in the power of technology to enhance learning. Second, I’m blessed to have a school that can afford the price tag that comes along with technology. Whenever I turned around at the conference and spoke about what KIS was doing or where we are at in our one-to-one program, others simply stated, “It must be nice to work there.” Which brings me to another dream I have for KIS’s future, to host a technology conference in Seoul within the next three years.
