The organisers did a fabulous job to bring this conference together with great keynote speakers and workshop presenters. There was enjoyable activities including a boat cruise and ferry rides and of course, delicious food.
A highlight for me was listening to a presentation from author, Des Hunt. Des spoke about how books were a big part of his life as he grew up. He shared some of his special book memories and spoke about his journey to become the prolific author that he is today. He demonstrated a chemistry experiment and used this as a metaphor for the financial struggle of being an author. It was hilarious. He shared his technique for talking to children about story, where he demonstrates the journey of a character using a special puppet controlled by magnets via his mobile phone - his own invention. A fascinating man and a real gentleman, Des Hunt was a delight.
Another highlight for me was finally meeting face to face twitter buddies from my PLN. I've been communicating for some time with @kerriattamatea and @MrsThorogood. We tweet about literacy and all things teaching and it was lovely to meet them in person.
It was a personal challenge for me to present a workshop at this conference. I prepared a presentation about collaborating and connecting from the classroom. It included a lot about twitter and some of the collaboration techniques I use in the classroom. I shared some of my experiences - particularly the 'Building Cultural Connections- Indonesia' trip I went on in 2015. I hope I was able to inspire some of the teachers to try some of these out for themselves. I really appreciated the support of my friend and colleague Deb Brett who came along to my presentation.
You can see my presentation here:
My thanks goes to the Tai Tokerau Literacy Association for all their hard work in putting the conference together. It really was great, I've only mentioned a few personal highlights here. Thanks for reading this post.
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