AI Literacy: Teaching With and About AI

Pat Yongpradit. Code.org (USA)

Pat Yongpradit is the Chief Academic Officer at Code.org, a non-profit focused on expanding computer science education, and also leads TeachAI, a global initiative that guides education leaders in rethinking learning in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this keynote talk, he introduces AI and its transformative impact, highlighting why AI literacy is essential for both educators and students. He offers insights into how the computer science (CS) education community has confronted critical questions about AI’s role and potential to enhance CS education, underscoring the opportunity to reflect on and rethink education as a whole.

Implementing learning analytics and learning design at scale: Lessons from the Open University UK and SoLAR

Bart Rienties. The Open University (UK)

A range of studies on learning analytics and practical interventions have shown that educators’ decisions around learning analytics and design significantly impact what, how, and when students learn. In this talk, Bart Rienties, Professor of Learning Analytics, programme lead of the Learning Analytics and Learning Design Research Programme at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University UK, and President of the Society of Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), shares insights on how to begin implementing learning analytics and design in your own context. He also discusses how learning analytics and design have been adopted worldwide, drawing on experiences from SoLAR, the largest research community focused on learning analytics.

Using Generative AI to support more engaging learning experiences

Pattie Maes. MIT (USA)

Pattie Maes leads the Fluid Interfaces research group at the MIT Media Lab, where she conducts research at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence. In this talk, she presents several prototypes and experiments that her group have created which utilize Generative AI (GenAI) in novel ways to create personalized, interactive, and engaging learning experiences. These experiences span various domains, including language learning, critical thinking, public speaking, history, and self-development. She also reviews the results of qualitative and quantitative studies on these systems and their impact on the learning experience and outcomes. This insightful presentation highlights the importance of combined Human+AI systems in enhancing the future impact of this technology.

When and How Flipped Learning is Effective

Manu Kapur. ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

In this talk, Manu Kapur, Director of the Singapore-ETH Centre, shares findings from an analysis of 46 meta-analyses and a meta-analysis of 173 studies on flipped learning, suggesting that most flipped learning interventions have underdelivered on the promise of active learning. Based on this research, Kapur presents a new and more specific model for flipped learning. In the 4F Model—Fail, Flip, Fix, and Feed—students are first asked to engage in generating solutions to novel problems, even if they fail to produce correct solutions, before receiving instruction. Finally, Kapur reveals the effectiveness of applying this new model.

Facing this Moment Critically & Creatively: AI Pitfalls & Opportunities for Educators

Sarah Newman. Harvard University (USA)

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have shaken the foundations of higher education and the work of lecturers and educators at all levels. Many of them feel intimidated and overwhelmed, questioning how these tools are changing the way to approach teaching and learning in the 21st century. In this talk, Sarah Newman, an educator and AI researcher leading the AI Pedagogy Project, provides recommendations (and some warnings) on how to effectively navigate the current situation. Centered around the value of interdisciplinarity, informed by technology ethics and seizing the opportunity that this presents, this talk outlines the pitfalls to avoid and offers concrete tips that educators can immediately apply to help them handle this new and challenging era.

Social Generative AI: A Future for International Education

Mike Sharples. The Open University (UK)

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking center stage in education. Mike Sharples, Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK, has studied the impact of AI in education for years. In this talk, he introduces the next steps being taken in the development of this disruptive technology: 'Social Generative AI'. These are AI systems interacting with humans and other AI tools in complex social networks. He shares the profound implications of this technological evolution and proposes ways to develop social AI for education that are not only effective and ethical, but also caring and founded on good pedagogy. Don't miss it!

Teaching might be an art, but learning is a science!

Pooja K. Agarwal. Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts (USA)

Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music and a cognitive scientist focused on how students learn. In this empowering talk, she delves into cognitive science research and demonstrates practical ways to effectively implement the science of learning in classroom settings. Dr. Agarwal shares concrete, research-backed teaching strategies—like retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and feedback-driven metacognition—that significantly enhance student learning. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to unleash the science of learning in your classroom and transform your teaching.

Unlocking the Potential: How Can Higher Education Lead the Way in a Changing World?

Cristobal Cobo. Senior Education Specialist (Chile)

In a post-pandemic context, Higher Education grapples with a pivotal role in addressing the multifaceted global 'poly-crisis', including climate change, demographic shifts, and the evolution of education technology. During this talk, Senior Education Specialist Cristobal Cobo explores vital institutional and interpersonal capacities crucial for the future of Higher Education: integrating sustainability and climate literacy, devising adaptable lifelong learning strategies, and cultivating 'algorithmic awareness' to navigate data-driven education. This is an insightful reflection to successfully navigate the challenges and complexities of the Higher Education system.

Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI

Ashok K. Goel. Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)

Ashok K. Goel is a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to online learning. In this talk, he shares his vision to develop novel AI cognitive assistants to enhance the quality of adult online learning through personalization of learning. He explains how a successful realization of this aim requires responsible research about the different AI technologies, but also on understanding the motivations, needs, and capacities of adult learners. He also describes some of the astonishing research results of the National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education on cognitive assistants and personal tutoring, but also the scientific and ethical challenges of these advances.

AI changes everything!

Donald Clark. Wildfire (UK)

In this talk, Learning tech entrepreneur, researcher and blogger Donald Clark shows how generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models like ChatGPT will change the way we work, but also what, why and how we learn. He starts with an historical panoramic review of researchers and education technologists who have all contributed to the advancement of AI and to the current situation we find ourselves in. Next, he presents some examples of the profound impact that this technology has on both work and learning, and how the consequences of their implementation are both acute and unexpected. Finally, he explores the ethics of AI in learning and the role of the teacher in this new world.

Teaching is really hard right now, and it's a "Great Thing"

Michael Wesch. Kansas State University (USA)

The pandemic has presented us with the most difficult challenges we have ever faced as teachers. The past years have forced teachers around the world to adopt new and unfamiliar technologies, adapt to ever-changing student needs, chipped away at our physical and mental health, and exacerbated political and ideological divides that now find their way into virtually every subject. For Michael Wesch, teaching has always been hard: “Properly understood for all that it is - the instilling of knowledge, curiosity, discernment, character, wisdom, and skill in the next generation - the art of teaching is what the poet Rilke would call a Great Thing”, he said. In this inspiring talk, Wesch explores how this mindset of seeing teaching as the impossible task that it truly is can actually energize us, center us, humble us, and most importantly, help us feel connected to our students and fellow teachers as we confront this mysterious great thing together.

Blended and Included

José Antonio Bowen. Association of American Colleges and Universities (USA)

Blended learning is an educational approach that combines online or digital components with face-to-face instruction. This approach creates opportunities but also challenges, to ensure that everyone is learning. For Jose Antonio Bowen, all good teaching is inclusive teaching and blended environments have the potential to create both better and more inclusive learning. Realizing this potential, however, requires a deeper consideration of transparency, belonging, engagement and scaffolding: good blended learning can maximize all of these, but only if we design it intentionally. In this presentation, Bowen provides both a framework for thinking about inclusive teaching in blended learning and specific suggestions for designing assignments, activities, and structures that will support the success of all of your students.

What Every University Professor Should Know About Meaning Making

Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa. Harvard University Extension School (USA)

Over the years, we have heard a lot about the important role of social-emotional learning within school settings. We have also learned something about how the brain learns in regular classrooms. What is less explored is how people make meaning out of their worlds by combining knowledge of how others feel and knowledge of how others think to construct reality. New neuroimaging technology now gives us a glimpse as to how people influence each other’s learning through a dynamic exchange of cognition and emotion. Meaning Making is a term used to describe how humans give context to their learning. In this talk, educational researcher and professor Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa explains how humans learn from this perspective, and why and how higher education must shift to remain relevant in modern times.

Productive Failure

Manu Kapur - ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

If learning from failure is intuitively compelling, how can we intentionally design for it, and bootstrap it for deep learning? Drawing on his engineering mindset for design, Manu Kapur, director of The Future Learning Initiative (FLI) at ETH Zurich, conceptualized and developed the theory of Productive Failure to design for and bootstrap failure for learning mathematics better. He has applied this theory across a range of schools and universities around the world, including the wide-scale re-design and implementation of the pre-university mathematics (statistics) curriculum and pedagogy in Singapur. In this talk, he describes his research on Productive Failure, and its implications for how we design powerful learning environments, innovation and creativity.

The aggregation of marginal learning gains: why they matter so much for the future of Learning

Stephen Heppell - Universidad Camilo Jose Cela (Spain)

Stephen Heppell is an expert in both Learning and Technology and a pioneer in the design of learning spaces. In this presentation, he talks about the new and unprecedented challenges that learners are facing: from nomadic campuses and hybrid systems to remarkable new technologies. Professor Heppell discusses research about how issues such as light brightness, temperatures, levels of volatile organic compounds, noise and even diet have a substantial impact on our learning. Don’t miss this talk that explores cost-effective, proven, solutions to optimise learning spaces and contribute to better learning.

Artificial Intelligence and Education. A Critical Studies Perspective

Wayne Holmes. University College London (UK)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is frequently hailed as a ‘solution’ to many of education’s core problems – problems such as the lack of qualified teachers, student underachievement, and better preparing learners for workplaces and career paths that may be very different from current paradigms. In this presentation, Wayne Holmes addresses such claims and identifies many of the key myths of AI in the field of education. During his talk, he explores teaching with and about AI, from a critical studies and human rights perspective. Don't miss this eyeopener presentation about the real impact of AI on the future of learning and teaching.

COVID and the future of Education

Richard Gerver (UK)

The last two years have been challenging for us all, besides the extreme health issues, we have been dealing with uncertainty, change and demands to redesign our education systems. In his keynote Richard will explore what we have learnt during the pandemic, about ourselves, our futures and what they mean for education moving forward.

Rise Up: Forward-Thinking Strategies for the Future of Teaching and Learning

Prof. Jordan Shapiro. Joan Ganz Cooney Center (USA)

Jordan Shapiro, PhD. has spent more than a decade working with educators, business leaders, and governments to help prepare the next generation of global citizens for a rapidly changing world. In this presentation, he shares his approach to tackling the relationship between technology, child development, and learning. He also asks unexpected questions about what it takes to prepare our children and students to think critically, advocate for social justice, thrive emotionally, and feel fulfilled in economic, political, and technological contexts that seem to be increasingly chaotic.

Navigating Digital Learning

Dr. Kristen DiCerbo. Khan Academy (USA)

With the increase in learning with technology, both in the classroom and at home, students are learning in new ways, and may need new strategies to be successful. In this talk, Dr. Kristen DiCerbo, the Chief Learning Officer of Khan Academy, discusses research-based tips for navigating online learning. She talks about staying motivated, how to develop learners' sense of ownership over their learning, and how to know if learners are gaining the knowledge and skills they need when working remotely.

Rosenshine's Principles in Action

Tom Sherrington. Education consultant (UK)

The session explores the popular set of teaching principles summarised by Barak Rosenshine, suggesting how they apply in various contexts. Tom Sherrington also looks at the Walkthrus materials and website walkthrus.co.uk to showcase how this toolkit can be used to support teachers implementing Rosenshine's principles through coaching systems and professional development programmes.

Mixed Realities: Real Problems, Virtual Solutions

Prof. Paul Chapman. The Glasgow School of Art (UK)

Professor Paul Chapman is Head of the School of Simulation and Visualisation (SimVis) at GSA. In this presentation, he reviews the evolution of computer graphics and the long-anticipated ‘coming of age’ of immersive technologies. During this futuristic talk, he gives some real-world examples of how SimVis are using these technologies to facilitate our understanding of complex real-world environments ranging from pharmaceutical engineering, heritage visualisation, medical training, and dangerous sports. The talk concludes with an assessment of the role of virtual solutions in the future of education.

Unlocking Youth Potential at Scale

Donnalee Donaldson. EDUCATE! (Kenya)

Educate!'s goal is to design skills-based, post-primary education and employment solutions which impact youth life outcomes sustainably and at scale. In this talk, Donnalee Donaldson, Educate!'s Policy and Partnerships Strategist, presents its approach to improving the quality of education youth receive: partnering with the government to reform a single secondary-level subject. She shares this strategy for improving the secondary experience and its outcomes for graduates, as well as the rigorous evidence of its impact. Educate! believes this quick and cost-effective approach to nationwide education reform has the potential to unlock opportunities for young people at scale, throughout East Africa, and beyond.

Permission To Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Success in School and Life

Marc Brackett. Yale University (USA)

Emotions influence learning, decision making, relationships, physical and mental health, creativity, and performance. Our wise use of emotion is especially important to our success. In this presentation, Marc Brackett (Yale University) describes recent large-scale studies on the emotional lives of children and adults, including pre and post COVID-19. He also presents Yale’s evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL), RULER, which has been adopted by over 3,000 schools across the globe, and shares research-based tools to build emotional intelligence and enhance personal and professional success.

Equipping and Supporting Resilient School Leaders

Deborah Kimathi. Dignitas (Kenya)

Leadership capability is the biggest determinant of agility, responsiveness and the sustenance of well-being and learning in education crises, such as that resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this virtual presentation, Deborah Kimathi talks through Dignitas support program for school leaders in Kenya. She presents a six-months period of targeted training and coaching, including peer learning and support communities to ensure the continuance of learning and well-being during national school closures. She also shares the impact of Dignitas' program to equip school leaders during School Reopening. In addition to equipping leaders with important capabilities for complex crises, this approach to school leader development allows education systems to embrace emerging practices for long term change, equity, and quality.

Teaching Change with a New 3Rs

José Antonio Bowen. Association of American Colleges and Universities (USA)

Learning something new —particularly something that might change your mind— is more difficult than teachers think. In this talk, José Antonio Bowen presents a new 3Rs (Relationships, Resilience and Reflection) that can help us lead better discussions and reach more students. Without sacrificing content, he explains how this approach can design courses to increase effort and motivation, provide more and better feedback, help students learn on their own and be better able to integrate new information now and after they graduate. In this talk, he shows how education needs to be redesigned to take into account how human thinking, behaviors, bias, and change really work. Lasty, José Antonio Bowen explains how recent and wide-ranging research from biology, economics, psychology, education, and neuroscience can guide us to redesign an education of transformation and change.

Presence and Placemaking: building community and belonging in online teaching

David White. University of the Arts London (UK)

David White is the Head of Digital Education at the University of the Arts London, President of the Association for Learning Technology and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is best known for the Digital Visitors and Residents idea which provides a framework to explore modes of online engagement. In this talk, he outlines ways of designing education which focus on presence and placemaking as central principles. Using the Digital Visitors and Residents mapping process, he explores forms of engagement online, where educators and students feel they belong and where they simply pass through. Reflecting on V&R maps, he explores how to actively design-back-in the co-presence and belonging we all long for in the digital environment.

Data and Learning Analytics

Barbara Wasson - University of Bergen (Norway)

It is often said that data is everywhere and that this data should be used for learning analytics to improve teaching and learning and the environments in which they take place. What is this data? Is it accessible? In this talk, Barbara Wasson, Director of the Centre for The Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE), the Norwegian national centre for learning analytics, focuses on data for learning analytics, and in particular on the challenges for using data in the implementation of learning analytics. She gives an insightful overview of the field using examples and good practices from leading projects.

Why Universities Can't “Return to Normal” After the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Cristobal Cobo - Senior Education Specialist (Chile)

The coronavirus pandemic has affected global education. Now it's time to analyse the lessons learned during this period. What happened with the technology? Were the universities prepared? Can (or should) universities get back to business as usual? Is this an opportunity to rethink how learning is delivered? In this talk, Cristobal Cobo explores some of the enforced transformations that the global scale lockdown has brought to higher education, especially addressing areas like vision and purpose, digital and hybrid learning, skills and labor market, platforms and datification, AI and ethics, credits and credentials.

In Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can't Transform Education

Justin Reich - MIT (USA)

MIT professor Justin Reich looks through the history of instructor-guided courses like MOOCs, algorithm-guided tools like adaptive tutors, and peer-guided spaces like networked learning communities. In this talk, he argues that education technology has never sweepingly transformed schools, but there are specific tools and approaches that work well in certain subjects with certain students. Looking back at where technology has made the most positive difference and understanding the barriers to adoption and effective implementation can give us clues to understand the pandemic year of remote learning and the future of schooling during the climate emergency ahead.

The Beautiful Risk of Moving Toward Pedagogies of the Possible

Ronald A. Beghetto - Arizona State University (USA)

Schools often engage in pedagogies of sameness in which the same group of students work on the same problems, in the same ways, and at the same time in an effort to arrive at the same outcomes. What if, instead, we commit to encouraging and taking the beautiful risk of inviting students and teachers to engage in pedagogies of the possible? In this thought-provoking talk, Ronald Beghetto talks about pedagogies of the possible, how they thrive on difference and have the aim of moving us into new and more promising k12 and higher education futures. He also shares actionable insights into how to design and support creative learning experiences aimed at developing learners' confidence and ability to tackle complex challenges and make positive and lasting contributions to the learning and lives of others.

Radical Collaboration and Positive Deviance: Education post pandemic in the Global South

Meagan Fallone - Barefoot College International (India)

Meagan Fallone is the former CEO and now Board Director of Barefoot College International, an award-winning initiative focused on Technology Mastery, Enterprise and Empowerment Training for illiterate and semi-literate women. In this talk, she explains some of the extensive programs and agri livelihood businesses of the Barefoot approach, which include Access to Energy-Barefoot Women Solar Engineers, Women’s Wellness and Nutrition, Education, Women’s Enterprise and Agency, Vocational Training and Digital Technology. She also shares some inspirational experiences and good practices collected during the global pandemic In the developing world.

The EDUCATE Golden Triangle: Connecting Key Stakeholders to improve the development and application of educational technology.

Rose Luckin - University College London (UK)

Rosemary (Rose) Luckin is Professor of Learner Centred Design at UCL, but she is also Director of EDUCATE: a London hub for Educational Technology StartUps, researchers and educators to work together on the development of evidence-informed Educational Technology. In this talk, she presented the first results of this programme and how it creates better connections between the people who design and develop educational technology, the people who use educational technology: teachers, learners, parents etc., and the research community who can help others to understand if an educational technology is effective.

Four Types & Four Goals of Online Teaching Videos.

Michael Wesch - Kansas State University (USA)

Five years ago, a dwindling staff and smaller budget left Michael Wesch, Professor of Anthropology and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Kansas State University, with no choice but to teach online. He was worried about the degradation of teaching: missing deep conversation, spontaneous collaborations, and emergent insights just to name a few. However, teaching online in a crisis had the surprising effect of freeing his practice of traditional "class" expectations, and he started re-thinking everything. In this presentation, Michael Wesch will take you behind the scenes to see how he set up an online course to create a sense of purpose, connection, and adventure for teachers and students alike.

Never a Better Time to Be an Educator! How Leveraging Neuroscience is Great News For Online Teachers.

Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa - Harvard University's Extension School (USA)

There is a series of new studies emerging over the past decade that show direct benefits of knowledge about how the brain learns that improve the likelihood of achieving desired educational outcomes in the classroom. The new and emerging fields within the learning sciences, including Mind, Brain, and Education science, have laid out a speedy track for research, application and evaluation which provides enough evidence to share “best practice” concepts with educators. Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa’s keynote lays out the new “normal” of teacher preparation based on the additional roles of neuroscience and technology, which are particularly important in times of COVID-19.

Reimagining Learning with Technologies.

Bo Stjerne Thomsen - LEGO Foundation (Denmark)

We are at a critical moment in history, with a remarkable opportunity to harness the quality of technologies to reimagine learning, based on the science of how children learn through play. Dr. Bo Stjerne Thomsen is Vice-President, Chair of Learning Through Play, and member of the Leadership Team at the LEGO Foundation. In this presentation, he describes the recommendations for educators, parents and policy on how technologies can truly transform our learning environments based on children's joy of learning, to test and try out ideas, and use their creativity to develop a holistic set of skills, more relevant for a changing and uncertain world.

Human by Chance. HumanE by Design.

Kiran Sethi - The Riverside School (India)

It is becoming increasingly clear that the needs of the twenty-first century ‘learner’ demands new approaches to ‘learning’. Kiran Sethi is a Designer who founded The Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India, a Laboratory to prototype “design processes” that enable “transformative” student learning experiences. In this talk, she shares the advantages of her Design thinking approach that cultivates skills for collaboration, creativity, compassion, and problem-solving. Her aim is to prepare young people to both navigate an unknown and complex future and believe they have the skills to shape a more desirable, sustainable future. During the presentation, she also explains some examples of how to cultivate a human-centered, collaborative and optimistic mindset to graduate children as Citizen Leaders.

Your Instant Decentralized Learning Community.

Stephen Downes - Digital Technologies Research Centre. National Research Council of Canada (Canada)

In this hands-on interactive session Stephen Downes, a researcher at the Digital Technologies Research Centre, National Research Council of Canada, creates a distributed online community, thus modelling a practice that can be used for any class or learning group. You will learn how to use your own website or blog to keep connected with the community using content syndication and to connect them with social media sites. Downes explains the dynamics of distributed online conversations, demonstrating with examples how these can combine digital learning with individual agency, as well as providing links to people and resources beyond individual courses and platforms.

THRIVE: schools reinvented for the real challenges we face.

Valerie Hannon - Innovation Unit (UK)

Valerie Hannon is a global thought leader, inspiring systems to re-think what ‘success’ will mean in the 21st Century, and the implications for education. In her talk, she looks at key trajectories for our future in the next 30 years. Hannon argues that this gives us a clear, urgent and inspiring agenda for reconsidering the very purpose of schools, and therefore the nature of schooling: curricula, pedagogy, and what counts as success. This has become even more urgent and relevant in the context of COVID19, when many are questioning what schools are for, as technology provides viable alternatives. In this presentation, she argues that schools are more essential than ever – but only if fundamentally redesigned.

Complexity and abundance - what higher education has learned from COVID19

Dave Cormier - University of Windsor (Canada)

For millennia our face to face classrooms have been a safe environment where the educator can control what information and knowledge the learners will be offered and tested for. In forcing entire education systems to consider online learning, we have been forced to reconsider what our education systems are for and what is possible and desirable as outcomes of this system. In this talk, Dave Cormier explores the light that our rush to teaching online has shed on our face to face teaching practices and what this could mean for the future of education.

Escuela Nueva Activa: Quality Education for Equity, Citizenship and 21st Century Skills

Vicky Colbert - Escuela Nueva (Colombia)

The presentation provides an overall analysis of why improving the quality of the most vulnerable schools in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Region requires a systemic perspective and a paradigm shift, from transmission of knowledge to comprehension and social construction of knowledge. Founder and director of Fundación Escuela Nueva, Vicky Colbert describes how this initiative, a local innovation, became a national policy in Colombia and has inspired educational reforms worldwide. Colbert describes its main objectives, strategies, adaptations to other contexts, results and evaluations, which demonstrate better cognitive and non-cognitive results in Escuela Nueva schools compared to conventional ones. She also touches on new developments, including how they are adapting to the conditions imposed by the COVID19 emergency, particularly to support teachers with resources, tools and guidance on how to continue the educational process of their students from home.

Growing Up Digital in a Changing World

Pasi Sahlberg - Gonski Institute for Education, University of New South Wales in Sydney (Australia)

COVID19 global pandemic has disrupted the ways we live, work, teach and learn. Many parents work from home, meetings and conferences are held virtually and hundreds of millions of children learn from home using digital technologies. The increasing time that young people spend on digital screens daily has several consequences in their wellbeing, health, identity and learning. In this presentation, Pasi Sahlberg describes an effort to find out how children and youth grow up in the world of digital media and technologies. Drawing from large-scale survey data from Australia and Canada he highlights the key findings in this project and suggests concrete steps forward in helping young people healthy, safe and responsible ways of living and growing up with their digital devices. These lessons are particularly relevant now when statistics suggest that daily time spent on digital gadgets has significantly increased.

Digital Learning and Learning Analytics

George Siemens - University of Texas (USA)

After decades of progress, research, and innovation, digital learning has been thrust to the forefront as schools, colleges, and companies transition to online learning and interaction. As the world of learning becomes digital, increasing quantities of data become available for researchers, learners, and educators. What can practitioners draw from research to inform daily practices? Over the past decade, a new field of research has started to provide guidance and direction: learning analytics. Learning analytics is concerned with learning processes and practices, the contexts in which learning occurs, and ways to provide guidance and support to improve learning. This presentation begins with an overview of digital learning research, then transition into a focus on how learning analytics contributes to understanding digital learning, and concludes by considering how the future of learning will be increasingly one of human and artificial cognition.

Transitioning to Personalised and Personal Learning

Steve Wheeler - Plymouth Institute of Education (UK)

In this presentation, Steve Wheeler explores the needs of students in a rapidly changing society, in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. One significant change has been the requirement of many schools, colleges, and universities to close their traditional study environments and move all learning online. This transformation presents educators with a unique opportunity to change pedagogy. A transition from en masse, ‘one size fits all’ education toward a personalised, and personal offering can be achieved using appropriate technology and pedagogical approaches. In addition, in this talk, you will learn about the differences between personalised and personal learning in the context of online learning.

Higher education when the world is on fire

Bryan Alexander - BAC (USA)

How will universities cope with emerging crises? As pandemic and climate change start to take hold, what future will we create? This presentation begins by examining the major, long-term forces reshaping higher education, including demographics and globalization. Next, futurist and researcher Bryan Alexander surveys how academia has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he outlines some ways universities can grapple with climate change, ranging from transforming campuses to new curricula and research. This inspiring talk concludes by exploring how education and technology practices may unfold in this century of crises

Finding Education Solutions in Unlikely Places

Monica Ares - Facebook (USA)

Nothing has had more of a profound impact on learning than Covid19. This situation has forced us to think creatively about the way we teach and the need to accelerate solutions for online and hybrid learning worldwide. This talk focusses on emerging technologies and their ability to build for a future where learning is more personal, powerful and connected. By leveraging the power of technology we can pioneer this new movement and redefine the way we teach and learn. Platforms and tools including AR and VR can turn learning into an experienced-based approach that will increase engagement and knowledge retention, grant students equitable access to education regardless of distance, and help students become innovative creators. Education is on the cusp of a technology revolution that will require a unified effort to achieve immediate and future solutions.

Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All

Yong Zhao - University of Kansas (USA)

In this presentation, Professor Yong Zhao calls for paradigm shift in education. Dr. Zhao brings extensive evidence to show that every child has both potential and need to become great. To help each and every child achieve their greatness, he claims that we need a different kind of education that focuses on enhancing the unique strengths and passion of each child: “Education is to help each and every child discover and develop their strengths and passions with the goal to create value for others and the world.” In this inspiring talk, you will discover what we need to make education personalizable by the child, instead of personalized for the child.

Teaching students to teach themselves: the Learning Power Approach

Guy Claxton (UK)

Traditional teaching methods may or may not be good for helping all students get good grades - but do they run the risk of cultivating unfortunate attitudes towards learning? World-renowned cognitive scientist and emeritus Professor of the Learning Sciences at the University of Winchester, Guy Claxton, claims that in a global job market that needs and rewards independent and adventurous thinkers, some schools are still turning out compliant, test-taker dependent. Over the last few years, new ideas about pedagogy have been emerging simultaneously in dozens of research and development groups around the world. In this presentation, Claxton shares his ideas about how to help our children get good grades in a way that also develops them as confident, powerful lifelong learners. This new way of teaching is called The Learning Power Approach - and anyone, in any school, with any kind of students, can make it work.

The Joy of Search: Augmenting intelligence by teaching people how to search

Daniel Russell. Google (USA)

The google search engine is very useful in everyday life, but how can educators and students take advantage of this incredible tool? Daniel Russell, Google's Senior Research Scientist for Search Quality and User Happiness in Mountain View, shares his experiences about how to use the search engine properly. Based on what he has learned from studies with live search traffic and from direct interactions with students, this talk covers which methods work best, why, and how it changes the way people think and answer difficult research questions. In addition, you will learn intriguing stories of how to be an effective searcher by going from a curious question to a reliable answer, showing how to do online research with skill and accuracy.

How Come We Don't Let Our Kids Do Any of the Fun Stuff WE Did?

Lenore Skenazy. Let Grow (USA)

The media labeled Lenore Skenazy as "America's Worst Mom" when she let her 9-year-old son ride the New York City subway alone. She wore the badge with pride and went on to found Free-Range Kids, the book, blog and eventually movement dedicated to the idea that our kids are safer and smarter than our culture gives them credit for. Now she is the president of Let Grow, a non-partisan non-profit promoting independence as a critical part of growing up. In this talk, she traces how we became so afraid of everything and how schools can play a key role in giving kids back the confidence and resilience stolen from them by our overprotective times.

Unfolding Deeper Learning: Designing Education for Tomorrow (and Today)

William Rankin (USA)

For almost five centuries, our classrooms and teaching have been shaped by a particular relationship between people and information that emerged from the technologies of printing and print culture. Yet as emerging technologies such as mobility, pervasive connectivity, social networking, and digital creation radically change our relationship with the world around us, our approaches to teaching and learning must change as well. Building from current educational theory and recent research, William Rankin proposes a multidimensional approach for engaging learners. In this presentation, he explains a learning environment that knits together content, community, and context — the three dimensions of learning — in order to encourage deeper learning that is tightly connected to local cultures and strongly supported by social bonds. This interactive presentation gives you key tools and insights for transforming your own learning environments and making them productive and relevant in a world of pervasive access and connection.

Education: A Manifesto for Change

Richard Gerver (UK)

Education is the most important factor determining the future of our young people, our economy, our society and ultimately our planet. Richard Gerver uses his experience-driven insights to clarify the vision, thinking and processes we must adopt if we are to develop a system that prepares our young people for the future. Bringing together his career as a former award-winning teacher, globally renowned principal, school and university board member and government policy advisor, Gerver speaks with clarity and precision, explaining exactly what skills, behaviours and attributes our students need to achieve success in the modern world and how we as educators help them to acquire and develop them.

Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times

Eric Sheninger. International Center for Leadership in Education (USA)

Change isn't coming as it is already on our doorstep. Educators need to recognize this in order to prepare learners with the critical competencies to thrive in a dynamic world. As the world continues to evolve so must educational practice. Digital leadership represents a strategic shift in mindset and actions that work to usher in needed changes to improve teaching, learning, and leadership while building powerful relationships with stakeholders in the process. The time is now to work smarter, not harder, to achieve better results. Using the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework to assist all educators to implement sustainable change, attendees will be exposed to actionable strategies to support and enhance current areas of professional practice through a digital lens.

How Neuroscience Is Changing What We Know about Learning: Practical Insights for Instructors

Barbara Oakley. Oakland University (USA)

How can neuroscience help to learn better and improve teaching practices? Barbara Oakley’s keynote will provide practical insights, using recent light microscopy imagery and neural animations, about how the brain learns. By seeing the restrictions of working memory, you’ll gain a better idea of how to structure teaching to avoid student cognitive overload. And by understanding the changes that good teaching can make in students’ brains, you’ll gain a better idea of how to help students neurally encode information, concepts, and techniques into long-long term memory—the essence of learning.

Education & the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Graham Brown-Martin. Learning {Re}imagined (UK)

Ubiquitous, mobile supercomputing. Intelligent robots. Self-driving cars. Neuro-technological brain enhancements. Genetic editing. Artificial intelligence. Climate change. Population growth and the rise of the precariat. What do these mean for the future of work, social agency and education? It’s beyond doubt that education is at the heart of preparing present and future generations to thrive. In this talk, Graham Brown-Martin considers the opportunities, exciting possibilities and significant challenges of the fourth industrial revolution and how schools can respond. He focuses on the areas that are key to future job creation: the ones that machines can’t do. An inspiring talk about how can we design an education that develops human potential and help our society to solve collaboratively real-world challenges.

Fear Less, Build More: Making, Bravery, and Purposeful Creativity in the Classroom

Emily Pilloton. Project H Design (USA)

With a background in design and architecture, Emilly Pilloton has led to newly adopted curriculum in public school districts along with dozens of community-based design projects that have been led and built entirely by students. In her presentation, Emily shares stories of these community-focused creative projects and provide strategies and mindsets to bring purposeful making into any classroom. Furthermore, by connecting creativity to our communities, bringing real projects to life in the real world, students become young leaders with the soft and hard skills that will prepare them for the future. This talk shows an initiative that uses the power of creativity, design, and hands-on building to amplify the raw brilliance of youth, transform communities, and improve K-12 public education from within. A successful way to reinvent teaching and learning in hands-on and community-focused ways.

Getting Every Student Ready for Every Class

Eric Mazur. Harvard University (USA)

Over the past decades, there has been a concerted push away from passive lecturing to active engagement in the classroom. A successful implementation of the so-called flipped classroom requires students to come to class prepared, either by reading the textbook or watching a prerecorded video. How do we make sure students effectively engage prior to class? A variety of approaches have been devised to get students to take responsibility for this information transfer, but none manage to get all students to participate, compromising the in-class activities.
In this talk, Eric Mazur presents a new approach to get every student to prepare for every class using a new social learning platform that uses a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors to get every student ready for every class in a course. Mazur, widely known for his work on Peer Instruction, an interactive teaching method aimed at engaging students in the classroom, adds the perfect tool to improve this successful methodology. A useful and engaging talk not to be missed!

Cities as Connected Learning Ecosystems: Pittsburgh’s Remake Learning Network

Sunanna T. Chand. Remake Learning (USA)

In an era of profound change, tomorrow’s graduates will be asked to solve problems on a global scale — problems for which, unlike on the assembly line, there are no set standards. They’ll need to think critically, work collaboratively, and communicate effectively across countries and cultures.
Sunanna T. Chand is the director of Remake Learning, an organization that believes that no one person or organization can achieve this alone. This talk is focused on how this network of 500+ organizations strong from every sector provides remarkable learning experiences for youth in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In her inspiring talk, you will learn how Pittsburgh has built a connected learning ecosystem around innovation and how other cities can do the same.

Gen Z is the problem solving Generation

Jaime Casap. Education Evangelist, Google (USA)

Generation Z is the demographic cohort after Millennials, defined as people born from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s. But most importantly, it is the first truly native digital generation; they have never known a world without constant connectivity and technology is just part of their lives. Is higher education ready for this generation? Jaime Casap, the Education Evangelist at Google, focusses on how this context impacts the way they think about learning and what and how they learn. In his talk, he highlights the relevance of critical skills such as problem solving, collaboration, iteration, and global competency in a world where digitalization is a key aspect of the future of jobs. An inspiring talk about the power and potential of technology and the web as enabling and supporting tools in pursuit of promoting inquiry-driven project-based learning models. A combination that will prepare the problem solving generation for the problems of the future.

A Global Revolution Goes to School: The Maker Movement

Sylvia Martinez. Invent To Learn (USA)

What is the maker movement? How could it help to improve formal education? Sylvia Martinez is a pioneer thinker about the benefits of this movement for learning. She defines the maker movement as a revolutionary global collaboration of people learning to solve problems with modern tools and technology. A process where adults and children are combining new technologies and timeless craft traditions to create exciting projects and control their world. In her talk, she focuses on the profound implications and possibilities for schools and districts concerned with engaging students, maintaining relevance, and preparing children to solve problems unanticipated by the curriculum. She shows how the technological game-changers of 3D printing, physical computing and computer science fuel transformations in the learning environment. A talk that will show how educators can adapt the powerful technology and “can do” maker ethos to revitalize learner-centered teaching and learning in all subject areas.

3.0 - Teaching, Learning & Leading in Unprecedented Times

Jon Bergmann. Flipped Learning Network (USA)

Professors are teaching, students are learning, and administrators are leading in unprecedented times. We're facing accelerating change, unparalleled pressures, and overwhelming technology. We are seeing growing uncertainty about how competition for education funding will impact schooling as we know it. These are the forces that are flipping the education world upside down. According to Jon Bergman, one of the founders of Flipped Learning, these paradoxical times require every educator to master three pivotal skills: Pragmatism, Plain Talk, and a Pedagogy that puts “relationships” at the center of education. Understanding and applying the three Ps are the big takeaways from this talk. Bergmann shares practical, actionable strategies, along with a roadmap in this lively keynote. You will learn why Flipped learning is not just another teaching tactic, but a meta teaching strategy that supports all others and how you will be able to apply it in your flipped classroom.

Whatever happened to the learning revolution?

David Price. Innovation Unit (UK)

In this inspiring talk, David Price outlines a possible future for learning where the three pillars - pedagogy, curriculum and assessment - will be radically, and irreversibly, shifted. The change will not come from policy makers, but from the irresistible forces already building from three pressure points: professional, parental and personal. The challenge for education professionals lies in seeing what comes next, and getting ahead of the curve of change. This talk seeks to identify what will replace some of our longest-standing learning monoliths, and to affirm and inform those already embarking upon changing their practice. The fatal trap is to assume that the relatively low profile of the learning revolution means that radical change will not come to their door. As Bill Gates said, "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction".

Courageous Edventures

Jennie Magiera. Des Plaines School District 62 (USA)

Great progress and innovation is made when brave individuals take big risks. For Jennie Magiera, educators need to be willing to embrace the chance of failure, and make leaps into the unknown for the sake of students. So how do we suspend doubts, navigate expectations from school systems, parents and leaders while exploring emerging and new technologies? Why is it important to think big in education? In this keynote, Jennie shares stories and examples of how your classroom can be an adventure for you and your students. See how you can start an Edventure in your classroom and discover your own version of innovation.

Anywhere, Anytime, Anyone: Transitioning Toward 21st Century Learning

Alec Couros. University of Regina (Canada)

Emerging technologies and social networks now provide us with the tools to dramatically transform our learning environments, and for the first time in history, learners now have the technical ability to learn anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Alec Couros’s talk explains the transitioning from former pedagogical models based on expert-to-student information toward the 21st century learning environment. In this presentation, he outlines some of the most relevant changes in our digital environments and also provides new possibilities for digitally-inspired pedagogies in higher education such as open and connected learning. An inspiring talk to learn how to use technology to start reconnecting with each other.

Where is higher education going? What changes can we anticipate now?

Bryan Alexander (BAC, USA)

Where is higher education going? Bryan Alexander gives an overview of the future of education based on his experience as researcher, consultant and educator. His talk begins by examining powerful present-day trends most likely to shape the future of post-secondary education. Demographic, economic, and political forces have already set in motion the creation of very different universities for the global north and south. Technological advances have started to redesign pedagogy, curricula, campus spaces, and research. Alexander also explores the ramifications of more emergent technologies. What are the learning opportunities enabled by 3d printing? Can blockchain improve credentialing or scholarly publication? How can automated tutors replace or work alongside human instructors? As these technologies combine to restructure society, how should education respond? A glimpse of the future not to be missed.

Escuela Nueva Activa: Quality Education for promoting Equity, Peace and Democracy

Vicky Colbert (Fundación Escuela Nueva, Colombia)

The Escuela Nueva educational model is worldwide known for its proven effectiveness in improving the quality of education. Vicky Colbert, founder and director of Fundación Escuela Nueva, explains the origin of the model and its main objectives, strategies, adaptations to other contexts, results and evaluations, which demonstrate better cognitive and non cognitive results in Escuela Nueva schools compared to conventional ones. She gives an overall analysis of why improving the quality of the most vulnerable schools requires a systemic perspective and a paradigm shift, a shift from transmission of knowledge to comprehension and social construction of knowledge and a new role of the teacher for the 21st century. Colbert describes how Escuela Nueva, a local innovation that became a national policy in Colombia. An inspiring talk where she highlights why necessity is the mother of innovation and how Escuela Nueva, a systemic perspective and proven solution to improve quality education, enhances equity, instills democratic behaviors, promotes twenty first century skills and both cognitive and socioemotional skills.

The imperative and practice of girls' education in Africa

Ann Cotton (Camfed, UK)

Girls' education is still a problem in different parts of the world, but especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Ann Cotton, founder and CEO of Camfed, explains in this talk how her organization supports girls to go to school and succeed, and empowers young women to step up as leaders of change. Ann's talk focusses on the implementation of a model driven by community activism that supports girls through primary and secondary school and onto higher education or employment pathways.
Learn here about an initiative that contributes to the sustainable transformation of impoverished rural communities in Africa.

Rethinking Higher Education

Ben Nelson (Minerva, USA)

Universities today are under an enormous amount of criticism and pressure: structures and pedagogical models developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, increasingly higher costs and rising demands for an educated work force in a changing and complex world. Minerva’s founder Ben Nelson talks about the origins of some of these problems, but also offers some disruptive ideas in order to change this situation.
He describes a new model of Higher Education based on a redefined student body, a reinvented curriculum, rigorous academic standards, cutting- edge technology and an immersive global experience.

The Role of Education in an Inclusive Innovative Economy

Anne-Marie Imafidon (Stemettes, UK)

Anne-Marie Imafidon main aim is to engage girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) careers. In this quest, she has cofounded Stemettes, an award-winning social enterprise inspiring the next generation of females into Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics roles via a series of events and opportunities. In 3 years, 7,000 girls across the UK, Ireland and Europe have had attended Stemette experiences.
In this talk, Imafidon explains why it's important to have a representative force, steps to take and the role of educators as well as wider society in increasing participation.

Audio Learning in Remote Villages

Cliff Schmidt (Literacy Bridge, USA)

How to make agriculture and health knowledge accessible to people without literacy skills in remote rural areas? Cliff Schmidt’s talk focus on an educational technology initiative to solve this problem: an audio-based mobile device called the "Talking Book", a simple, durable, and battery-operated audio device that provide on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge.
Learn about this approach to delivering education in extreme situations by combining locally created content with technology designed specifically for the learning needs of oral cultures. A project that collaborates with UNICEF and other partners to impact hundreds of thousands of people each month.

Transformational Six

Alan November, November Learning (USA)

What is the unique added value of technology to transform learning? In this talk, he focus on 6 questions educators can ask as a gauge for moving beyond technology as a “$1,000 pencil”. His talk provides examples of how to answer yes to questions such as Did the assignment build capacity for critical thinking on the web? or Is there an opportunity for students to create a contribution?
Alan November was one of the the first teacher in the world to have a student project on line in 1984, a database for the handicapped. Since then, he has been director of an alternative high school, computer coordinator, technology consultant, and university lecturer. November has helped schools, governments and industry leaders improve the quality of education through technology.

Role of a non-state player in improving public education

Safeena Husain, Educate Girls (India)

With over 200 million illiterate women and over 3 million eligible yet out of school girls, India is the epicentre of gender gap in education. Safeena Hussein is the founder and Executive Director at Educate Girls — a non-profit organisation that aims at tackling issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system. With a programmatic presence in over 4,600 villages and over 8,000 schools, Educate Girls' codified, sustainable program model has enrolled over 100,000 girls in formal schools and has directly benefited over 2.8 million children. Her talk shows the moving and inspirational story of how a non-state player achieve a vital catalytic role in improving the public education space for the most marginalized girls in India.

The rhizomatic lense - seeing learning from the perspective of abundance

Dave Cormier, University of Prince Edward Island (Canada)

Learning systems are fundamentally designed to solve the problem of information scarcity. Courses are designed to organize ‘content’ and assessments to ensure that students have remembered this content. But, is this approach the best way to prepare learners to deal with complex problems that do not have clear solutions? In a world where information is abundant, Dave Cormier thinks that it may be necessary to change this tactic.
In this talk, Cormier explains the rhizomatic perspective, which is situated in the idea that there is no beginning or ending to the learning process. He seeks to create learning environments where we focus on learning from within a community of knowing, where the idea of “content” is replaced with the actual people.

Plan Ceibal or how to accelerate pedagogy when technology is available for all students.

Miguel Brechner, Centro Ceibal (Uruguay)

In Uruguay, all public education students between grades 1 and 9 have laptops, 99% of them have connectivity in their education facilities and all have fiber optics in urban areas. But how did such a relatively poor and small country achieve this? Plan Ceibal is the answer to this powerful transformation. It is a program that provides equal opportunities to students and emphasizes social inclusion as a means of changing learning education.
Miguel Brechner is the president and founder of Centre Ceibal, the organization driving this program. In this talk, Brechner explains his vision about equality, and how technology and pedagogy helped to change the educational landscape and the society of his country.

Mind-blowing Tech

Donald Clark. PlanB Learning (UK)

Do you want to learn about the technologies that will shape the future of education? Donald Clark was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, the leading company in the early UK online learning market. He draws in his 30 years experience in online learning, games, simulations, social media and mobile learning projects to shows an array of recent technological innovations, with real examples, that can help us teach and learn.
Grounded in learning theory, or cognitive ergonomics, you will discover the new trends in open, semantic, adaptive, gamification, AR & VR technology that reveals how consumer technology can help some of the most pressing problems in education - crises in cost, relevance and delivery.

Orchestration Graphs

Prof. Pierre Dillenbourg. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (Switzerland)

A former teacher in elementary school, Pierre Dillenbourg works in developing educational technologies that allow educators to improve learning but also to manage their classroom. In this talk you will learn about his approach, known as classroom orchestration, with some pedagogical scenarios he tested in schools, in vocational training as well as in MOOCs.
The latest evolution of this environment are orchestration graphs, a language that describes the orchestration of integrated learning scenarios, i.e. scenarios that integrate individual activities, teamwork and lectures. The scenario is modeled as a graph aimed at optimizing the learner’s path along the pedagogical scenario.

Digital Learning Futures: Mind the Gap!

Steve Wheeler. Plymouth University (UK)

The future of education will be greatly influenced by new and emerging technologies. Appropriate technologies can reduce the distance, whilst inappropriate technologies may amplify the distance. Steve Wheeler is an Associate Professor of Learning Technology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth and he has seen how students are now engaging with knowledge in new ways, creating and repurposing, as well as consuming content. On the other hand, teachers are now grappling with a vast array of choices and possibilities, but often decisions are based on appearance rather than affordance.
In this talk, Steve Wheeler highlights some of the new and emerging technologies and argue that for education to truly harness the power of these new tools, we really need to consider the human (social and psychological) issues as well as the technical perspectives. These include not only skills and competencies but also the new literacies that are evolving as we engage with knowledge making in the digital age.

Learning to make a difference: What should be the real core curriculum of Modern School

Charles Leadbeater. Management & Information Consultant (UK)

Charles Leadbeater draws on his extensive research on innovation in education around the world, from the poorest slums to the richest countries, to look at the six key qualities education will need to foster for young people to succeed in a modern world which is volatile, uncertain and yet full of promise and opportunity.
A senior adviser to different governments and companies, Leadbeater’s talk draws on examples of innovation in education from around the world to point to a system that nurtures talent and encourages children to ask questions when there is no just one answer, challenge conventional thinking, crate tangible products, persuade people with what they know, and collaborate to make solutions of their own.

In Search of Uncommon Wisdom

Larry Johnson, New Media Consortium (USA)

Join Larry Johnson, founder of the NMC Horizon Project, in an exploration of the road ahead for learning and educational technology. In the spirit of William Gibson, who observed that, “the future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed,” Johnson's focus is on where things are going — by understanding where they are coming from.
What Johnson sees coming for learning shares little in common with the technologies, networks, software, or systems of today’s educational technology. Virtually every assumption we have about the use of technology in education — our common wisdom — is based on how we have done things in the past— and our own experience is likely the biggest limit on our future success. The future state of any level of education certainly will bear little resemblance to its past.
Johnson address these topics in the context of the evolution of the modern university, and detail the significant challenges and shifts in that framework that schools and even universities must understand and embrace.

Innovations in Education for Poverty Elimination: the Financially Self-Sufficient Schools and the Poverty Stoplight

Martin Burt, Fundación Paraguaya (Paraguay)

During the past 10 years Martin Burt and Fundacion Paraguaya have been experimenting with new education models to address two intractable social problems: access to quality education in poor countries and multidimensional poverty in rural villages and urban slums.
In this talk, Burt addresses two successful programmes devoted to the promotion of entrepreneurship and self-help to eliminate poverty around the world. On the one hand, the financially self-sufficient school model (education that pays for itself) for the rural poor. On the other hand, the Poverty Stoplight, a new metric and methodology to assist families to self-diagnose their level of multidimensional poverty and develop customized plans to eliminate poverty.
Don’t miss this talk and learn about how these programmes are now being adapted to countries in Latin America and Africa, challenging conventional paradigms of how to promote youth employability and eliminate poverty.

Memorization or understanding: Are we teaching the right thing?

Eric Mazur, Harvard University (USA)

Eric Mazur is the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University and Dean of Applied Physics. Twenty years ago, he developed ‘Peer Instruction’, a methodology that refocused teaching physics from the point of view of the lecturer to the point of view of the student. Since then, ‘Peer Instruction’ spread across different disciplines and countries around the world. Through this talk, Mazur explains how he first came to this idea that revolutionized his lectures and the reaction of their students and colleagues. He shows how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to synthesizing information greatly improves the learning that takes place in the classroom. Mazur introduces this pioneer methodology in an enjoyable and engaging talk where you will also learn some physics!

Not by Chance, But by Design!

Kiran Bir Sethi, The Riverside School in Ahmedabad (India)

From Ahmedabad, India, Kiran Bir Sethi has started a movement of empowerment and education that has reached over 30 countries – impacting more than 25 million children. She shares with the audience what happens when learning environments are infected by the "I CAN" bug and how design thinking has been used to create empowered individuals who can be agents of change. Kiran Bir Sethi is a designer and director of The Riverside School, but also the founder of the 'Design for Change' - the world’s largest movement of change – of and by children. Based on four simple steps - Feel, Imagine, Do and Share - children around the world have developed ideas and projects to drive social change in their society. She shows vivid and inspiring cases of social transformation that promotes optimism in education. Her talk asserts that new and better things are possible and that each of us can make change happen. After this talk, you will realize that change is the result of a process that can be consciously nurtured and energized.

The MOOC of One: Personal Learning Technologies

Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada (Canada)

What will it happen after the MOOC? How will they influence the next generation technology? Stephen Downes, who built the world's first MOOC software, describes the development of MOOC and examines the transition from the idea of the massive open online course to the personal learning environment.
While much attention has been paid in recent years to the massive numbers of students able to participate in open online learning, what is often overlooked is the capacity of individual learners to use open online learning to shape and design their own curriculum and pedagogy.
This talk will examine how open online learning puts the control of learning into the hands of learners, how educators will adapt with new learner-driven pedagogies and curriculum design, and the technical infrastructure supporting personal learning in a community and cooperative environment.

Linking Education with Entrepreneurship

Pape Samb, Exeleadmen (USA)

Entrepreneurship is one of the solutions for developing self-sustainable communities, women and youth-led initiatives in developing countries. But, how can we teach to be an entrepreneur? Pape Samb is a social entrepreneur specialized in international development. He is the chairman, founder and designer of the Global Youth Innovation Network (GYIN), a youth-run and led network of over 5,000 young leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators and farmers in approximately 100 countries.
This talk shows the experimental learning approach that has been supported and sustained by the GYIN throughout its national chapters in Africa. Samb shares how to link education with entrepreneurship by transforming schools into experiential learning labs to promote dynamic interchange of ideas, shared learning, teamwork, innovation and greater personal accountability for achieving personal success. The speaker will present a three-step experiential approach including self-assessment activities, practical group learning, and use of success stories to develop innovative self-sustainable youth enterprises.

Video Games for Learning and Assessment: Potential for a Sea-change in the Educational Landscape

Robert Torres, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (USA)

“How can I have the greatest impact?” After some years working in education reform, Robert Torres realized that the impact was minimum. Then, he thought “why not pay attention to what children were doing?” The answer to his question was video games. Since then, his research has focused on the games based learning field. He co-founded Quest to Learn, a games based school in New York City, and now is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He leads two portfolios, one focused on Games for Learning and Assessment and another focused on Competency-Based Education/Anytime, Anywhere.
His talk is about the history of video games and their impact on learning. Don’t miss all his experiences and enjoy the latest examples of educational video games. Games that not only engage and create deep learning environments but also that are able to asses learning.

Cross-sector reciprocal relationships as a catalyst for change in Education

Louise van Rhyn, Symphonia Group of Companies (South Africa)

Louise van Rhyn is a social entrepreneur. She believes the worlds' huge intractable problems can be solved through cross-sector collaboration and a solid understanding of complex social change. In this talk she explains how she has put this belief into practice with the Partners for Possibility (PfP) Programme. This programme incorporates a simple idea of partnering business leaders with school principals.
Louise van Rhin became the first business leader to partner with a principal in an effort to improve a school's education outcomes in South Africa. Listen to Louise story about this inspirational project and how, 3 years later, the PfP initiative has started a real change in South African society with 155 schools and business leaders involved in the programme.

MOOCS and other recent innovations in online learning. Is the sky the limit or falling on our heads?

Philipp Schmidt, MIT Media Lab (USA)

What will education of the future look like? Open, free and collaborative are some of the attributes of Jan Philipp Schmidt’s vision of education. Schmidt is an open education activist and researcher based at the MIT Media Lab where he works with Joi Ito and Mitch Resnick. He is executive director and co-founder of the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), the grassroots community for social learning online.
In this talk he shows some examples of his projects, whose main philosophy is that students are in charge of their own learning. Participants act as both teacher and learner, and are thus able to collaborate throughout the entire course development process, beginning with design, and extending through co-teaching and peer evaluation. Don’t miss this talk about a different kind of elearning and MOOCs!

With Solar-powered Floating School, Comes Education and New Learning Technologies at Doorsteps: Hope Floats in Waterside Community

Mohammed Rezwan, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha (Bangladesh)

Mohammed Rezwan grew up in the nearby village of Shidhulai and was often unable to go to school during monsoons, when the roads were flooded. "Schools would be closed for months" he commented. In 2007 more than 4,000 primary schools were closed, at least another 4,000 were affected and 44 were washed by river erosion. In his presentation, Rezwan, Founding Executive Director of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, introduced a floating education system to ensure year-round access to quality education in flood-prone regions. He shows how he developed, expanded and sustained the floating schools over 10 years. Drawing on his architectural expertise, he designed spaces on boats that successfully accommodated the needs of schools, libraries, and training and healthcare centers. In his presentation, Rezwan, Founding Executive Director of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha introduced a floating education system to ensure year-round access to quality education in flood-prone regions.

Understanding Transformative Learning through Designing and Developing Transformative Experiences: 9.5 Principles

Aaron Doering, LT Media Lab (USA)

Although the literature urges educators to provide transformative experiences, pragmatic approaches to designing and affording opportunities for these experiences are seldom acknowledged. Through the lens of contemporary online learning environments - designed, developed, and delivered at the Learning Technologies Media Lab and experienced by millions of students worldwide - Doering will provide an in-depth look at what he believes are the principles that guide the design of potentially transformative learning experiences. While it may be difficult to apply every principle in every environment, he urges designers to take a closer look at their designs to empower and motivate students, providing the opportunity for learner's to change the way they think, act, and feel – personal transformations.

Hippocratic Learning: First Do No Harm...

Lizbeth Goodman, SmartLab (Ireland)

In this presentation, Professor Goodman argues that the most important aspect of inventing the future of education, and of educational technology innovation, is to go back to the basics of understanding and protecting the rights of the individual learners: the concept that systems of education should be built upon a firm foundation of ethical and empathetic commitment to maximizing learning potential for all. The Hippocratic Oath, normally sworn by medical doctors, should also be sworn by educators and inventors of technologies for learning, as well as by architects and designers of learning spaces and of curricular and assessment tools. As the speed of technology development has geared up to move faster and faster, and as innovations and iterations of learning tools have also moved forward faster and faster, what has tended to be left behind is the very basic idea that each learner should be protected and empowered in our learning systems. This talk argues for the inclusion of Empathy, Creative Thinking and Social Engagement as well as Literacy and Numeracy in our core curricula, and for a global commitment to learning as a right of all citizens.

ICT to Inspire

Tim Rylands (UK)

Tim Rylands keynote speech was a truly inspiring and engaging journey through a range of ideas to use ICT in the classroom to make the learning experience more engaging, enjoyable and most importantly inspiring. Enjoy his imaginative and encouraging style of teaching, which allows children to express their creativity and make significant gains in attainment. He inspired the delegates with a range of Web2 tools and software (most of it FREE), hand-held devices, games and more. Rylands is a firm believer that ICT is about communication more than technology … and that it should be FUN. He proved it in this enjoyable talk!

Adventure Learning: Bringing Real-World Issues Direct from the Field into Classrooms Worldwide

Aaron Doering, LT Media Lab (USA)

Traveling the world to educate students about the changing environment has been Aaron Doering’s life dream. Over the past decade, Doering, professor of Learning Technologies and co-director of the Learning Technologies Media Lab, has educated millions of learners throughout the world through his travels bringing Adventure Learning to the forefront of education. Doering will speak about his expeditions crossing the circumpolar Arctic by dog sled and his latest project, Earthducation, which investigates the intersection of education and sustainability on every continent. Together let’s explore the world and understand the excitement about Adventure Learning!

Society 3.0

Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, Apollo Research Institute (USA)

Society 3.0 explores the intersection of technology, education, and business. Rapid changes in society and work, fuelled by technology, are creating new pressures on employers and educators to change. These pressures include an increased demand for an educated and skilled workforce, technology relevancy, and a propensity for lifelong learning. The 21st century requires preparing the workforce for current and future employment to ensure personal and national prosperity. Our new society requires that individuals take an active part in their own personal development and chart their future path. In this visual presentation, Tracey Wilen-Daugenti will outline current trends, research, and shifts in technology and society that change the way educators and employers need to advance today's workforce.

Equipping the Academy for the Age of Mobility

George Saltsman, Adams Center for Teaching and Learning (USA)

In fall 2008, Abilene Christian University (ACU) became the first university to initiate a mobile learning program by providing an Apple iPhone or iPod touch to all incoming freshmen to integrate technology and learning both in and out of the classroom. George Saltsman is the Executive Director of the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning at ACU and one of the leaders of ACU Connected Mobile learning initiative. He works closely with faculty and administrators who are deploying and researching mobile learning within education. In this talk, George explains how mobile technology can be used to help people learn in new ways and how these tools can aid us in our mission to educate students. Find out why he is the winner of the Campus Technology Innovator of the Year and The New Media Consortium Center of Excellence award!

Hole in the Wall

Sugata Mitra, Newcastle University (UK)

In an experiment conducted first in 1999, known as the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiments in children’s learning. In the initial experiment, a computer was placed in a kiosk created within a wall in a slum at Kalkaji, Delhi and children were allowed to use it freely. The experiment aimed at proving that children could be taught by computers very easily without any formal training. Sugata termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated in many places, HIW has more than 23 kiosks in rural India. In 2004 the experiment was also carried out in Cambodia. This work demonstrated that groups of children, irrespectively of who or where they are, can learn to use computers and the Internet on their own with public computers in open spaces such as roads and playgrounds, even without knowing English. Enjoy this inspiring talk of the recent winner of the TED Prize 2013!