EdTech Team hosted three South Africa Summits this year: Cape Town Summit, Johannesburg Summit and KwaZulu-Natal Summit. I attended the Johannesburg Summit featuring Google for Education in partnership with Dainfern College on 30 June and 1 July 2017.
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| Kaila Melvill-Smith, me and Tanielle Quinn at the start of the summit. |
I have been following Lindsay Wesner (@LadyWesner) on Twitter for some time now and I was thrilled when it was announced that she would be the opening keynote speaker. Her keynote "Once Upon Our Time" was designed "to inspire and empower educators to take ownership of their own story and journeys of transformational teaching and learning to give their students a voice and an authentic audience for meaningful problem-solving and storytelling and to begin to understand how we can collectively impact the story of South Africa's education system." As Lindsay shared her own journey into technology, she challenged us to:
This really hit a chord with me, as so often this is the case when I am implementing new technology into my lessons. Often we are scared that we may fail but we need to remember a powerful quote from Woody Allen:
"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."
Lindsay went on to talk about the importance of photographs which are so prevalent in the generation we are presently teaching. She asked the question, "How might we leverage this culture of digital documentation?"
We need to find the sweet spot between passion, education and technology. That's where the magic happens... and
when that magic happens, Lindsay asked us to Tweet about our stories of education in South Africa using #ZAedu.
"All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and so gorgeous at the end."
Danieta Morgan (@YouthInnovator), the second keynote speaker, spoke about "Innovating YOUth". She explained that innovation meant being prepared to change, bridging that gap and going out and actually doing something. She used a compass to describe the journey. The four compass points stood for: fear, growth, exposure and iteration (which is the act of repeating and reflecting - I had to look that one up). I chatted to Danieta after her Keynote and discovered that she was on her honeymoon - another example of a dedicated teacher.
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| My groupie photo with Danieta Morgan. |
"What Gran has to say" was the title of Jay Atwood's (@jayatwood) closing keynote. His gran taught him four important lessons:
1. Know what is trending.
2. Learn from someone, teach someone.
3. Everything is hard before it is easy.
4. Give it a go.
A brilliant message to end another amazing summit. Congratulations and thank you to Anthony Egbers and his team for once again hosting this worthwhile event.
