Actually I’m exhausted, though not much wiser for three days of conference-going. Day three had its moments – good ones actually. I’ll share some with you!

Great Leadership Workshop led by Westley Field from MLC, Sydney and Keith Anderson, PLC Perth. Thanks for keeping the focus on blended learning, not just e-learning and technology. Both schools have a strong strong link to deep thinking coupled with creativity.

Westley shared Frank Crowther’s ‘Strategic Foundations’ with us as an enabling mechanism for transformation. These are made up of:

School vision – clear, shared and meaningful
Distributed Leadership
Success – promoted
Step-by-step – taking people on the journey

We heard about the PLC approach to strong, blended differentiation.
We heard about an MLC approach to building communication and community. A step-by-step approach has allowed them to reach significant milestons ……and desired outcomes.

Martin Levins of The Armidale School followed with a strongly focussed session where the key message for me was “creativity is the next literacy” (echoing Marco’s message). (Martin has emailed me to let me know that this quote is derived from that insightful and humorous presentation of (Sir) Ken Robinson at the TED conference in Monterey, CA. I highly recommend catching up with the TED talks, if you haven’t checked them out previously.

As Martin says:

Learning is the focus, not ICT
Give laptops to all your teachers, and expect creative work in return from some
Be a progenitor of dialogue
Leaders need to champion good work
Employ good, people-oriented staff

Best response to the teacher who says “I don’t like change!” :

Well, if you don’t like change, you’ll like ‘irrelevant’ even less!