ACEC2010 My slant

How is it that a conference about technology, namely the ACEC 2010, the national biennial conference of the Australian Council for Computers in Education, wasn’t chiefly about technology?

That’s a good thing in case you’re wondering.

So, for me, at least, the conference was about the opportunities to meet new people, share ideas and make connections. Some of these people I hadn’t previously met, others I knew online and was happy to finally meet face to face. And the program wasn’t too bad either.

I attended one day in body and the other days virtually. Either way, I was there thanks to the gracious collaboration of participants on Twitter #acec2010 and other great places to be when you’re not there.

The theme of the conference expresses the essence of the program:

Digital Diversity conference explores interactive and creative approaches to ICT in education. Addressing diversity in styles of learning and thinking offers us new pathways for building the right knowledge and skills to adapt to constant change.

Yes, the theme of the conference is ICT, but the words ‘interactive’, ‘creative’, ‘diversity’, thinking’, ‘building’ and ‘adapt to change’ express the real focus.

The sharing has been amazing. For example, @ackygirl tweeted a link to the Twitter transcript.

Here are ACEC2010 Delicious links.

Alan November‘s plenary and workshop sessions were a highlight for me on the Wednesday.

Amongst other things, Alan spoke about authentic learning projects based in the real world, for example,  the teacher and students who built their own Wikipedia page. Listen to these students describe themselves as historians in the most serious way.

A huge thankyou to organisers of this very successful conference. Hope to see everyone again next year.

6 thoughts on “ACEC2010 My slant”

  1. Hi Tania,
    You have really “hit the nail on the head” when you refer to “creativity, diversity, thinking, building and adapting to change”.
    I am sorry I didn’t get to meet you in person. I, too, was only able to attend one day of the conference yet I certainly felt a part of it via the wonderful tweets and other online resources.
    Isn’t it a wonderful online world that we live in?!
    Lucy 🙂

    1. Lucy, I wish I had met you too. I suspect we missed meeting lots of people we’re familiar with online; shame. I agree – opportunities for connection always exist wherever we are.

  2. tsheko
    Nicely put. For me a real highlight was Gary Stager’s keynote. He did warn us it would sound like tough love, to me it was more a call to arms! Not so much to grow up, as to be proud of what has been acheived so far in ICT in the last 20 years and not to let the naysayers stall the progress. Yes he got quite emotional and some of his points bordered on the flippant/controversial or just came down to how he interprets other people’s jargon. But I am told we should expect this from Gary and I feel it was such a rich speech full of gems that it will require quite alot of unpacking and thought given to understanding where to from here.
    The last day also had some awesome workshops, @digimuve was a real highlight, along with @steve_collis of course!
    Finally who could forget Adam Elliot what an amazing story
    Thanks for posting
    Mike

    1. Now you’re making me feel jealous for not being there in person the whole time! Really wanted to go to Adam Elliot’s session. Did anybody write that up? Gary sounds like a character – will hopefully hear him one day too. Thanks for sharing your impressions. Do you blog?

  3. Great post Tania! I am disappointed that we didn’t get to meet in person! I think it was wonderful that in an ICT conference that the focus wasn’t actually the tools of ICT but great learning. It was pretty inspiring

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