David Rogers

The first keynote of the day was from Michael Furdyk , who was introduced as someone who just makes you feel inadequate! You can certainly see why ! The co-founder of TakingITGlobal had an inspiring tale to tell, and one that has powerful implications for education. Firstly, it’s worth taking a look at this TED Talk highlighted and used by Michael during his talk: Trust is an issue in school when we need to let go – this puts up some barriers when it comes to co-construction of learning or indeed, adults learning from young people. There are a lot of links here to projects such as Digital Leaders where young people become the experts and driving force. The question is, why aren’t we showing videos such as this in assemblies? Two features of Michael’s talk hit me quite hard. The way in which he acknowledged the role of having supportive parents and a flexible, supportive school system was clear. I have no idea how the UK education system can be as flexible as described by ...

It was great to see Stuart Ball announce the UK Innovative Education Award winners over on the Partners in Learning blog earlier today.  It was around this time last year that I found myself at the beginning of a journey that is continuing to this day. I was expecting to be thrown into a corporate world where Microsoft would be force fed to me as the only option. This couldn’t have been further from the truth as what I found was an incredibly supportive community of teachers and professionals that talk about learning. This year I am also delighted that one of the Geography team that I work with is an award recipient! Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to finding out more about each project at the event on the 29-30th November.  If you haven’t registered yet, I would urge you to do so. So many congratulations to this year’s winners – whether you get to the European event or not, your Partners in Learning adventure is just about to begin! You can follow ...