Mini+Conference

Yahoo!!!!
The Mini Conference for our cluster schools was held at Karamu High School on **Wednesday 23rd June.** We started at 12:55pm. and finished at 4:15pm. The Princpals were invited to give the conference a theme. In keeping with our cluster name and aspirations the theme was

We had a keynote speech followed by 2 rounds of 45 minute workshops, followed by some delightful drinks and food and the grand Spot Prize draws.


 * Rod Drury**, our keynote speaker, spoke on the topic **“ICT-The Next 5 years”**. He chatted about his perception of what changes were afoot in New Zealand and what was driving those changes. He suggested that the technology we utilise in our homes often far exceeds that which we have access to at work, and that this is also true for the kids. He saw schools become "local ISPs" in which a fully interactive, connected network of devices owned by students could be utilised in powerful ways. He also suggested that if we got rid of our text books, the money we would save could fund such change.

[|Descriptions of all breakout sessions](pdf)
We used SurveyMonkey to collect the responses to the Breakout offerings, and this proved to be more than satisfactory for the task. Feedback is that it was easy to use. However, when several people wanted to access it from the same computer, you had to clear the cookies else it remembered that the form had been completed and wouldn't allow a second visit. This was a small matter, easily solved. In SurveyMonkey's evaluation format, it was okay to enter data but you couldn't bring in bulk lots of responses then work them in an Excel table. We ended up paying the monthly fee for full usage (about $US19.00), and we think that was very worthwhile.

In the next two weeks, further information and reports relating to the conference will go up on this site.

Thanks, everyone, for doing your bit to give I-Connect a really good conference. Russell.