So I really enjoy the ADE Asia Pacific Institute. I was conscious that I was one of the 'oldest' ADEs there - class of 2009 - and that made me wonder whether ADEs have a lifecycle- i.e. people dip in and dip out depending on their careers and so on, but regardless of my 'age', I really enjoyed the event. It's a good formula - get teachers together, and give them time to talk about the parts of teaching that excite them, and make sure you've got lots of diversity - stimulating conversations are sure to arise - and they did. For me, there were a couple of key highlights:
- Glen Storey's Swift sessions. I can't believe how far Swift has come in the years since I last looked at it. A lot of this is SwiftUI, which I admit I haven't dabbled in, but the idea of going from your first line of code to your first app is really powerful - and the fact you can do it on iPad!
- Jesiah Creek's Keynote was excellent. I think it really highlighted the 'informal' learning experience. There was nothing easy about it - he said he spent years and 3000 hours working on the code, but he did it all without a formal class/ curriculum. There's something worth exploring in that.
- I was surprised that there was so little discussion about AR/VR and AI - at least in terms of what that means for educators.
One of the outcomes for the Institute is to work on our One Best Thing. I'm going to start to think about how I might prepare pre-service teachers to work in technology-rich environments. Part of this is about differentiating our university from other competitors. And I'm also inspired by Walter Barbieri's work in South Australia. But I think that having some kind of certification from Apple at the end of a degree could be a really powerful way of getting a foot in the door. It should certainly add value to the program.
So, first step: I'm going to survey my students to see how many are interested.
Anyway,
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