Creating Bridges Between Islands of Excellence

Last November I had the pleasure of attending an event with the very delightful name: Islands of Excellence.  The event was organized by two people whose work I admire very much, Kathryn Meisner and Jennifer Chan of  Make Waves.  "Make Waves is an education innovation catalyst ...(they) ...  build creative culture, ignite new connections and inspire agile strategies."  

Make Waves is by no means the only project these two have on the go.  They are engaged in many endeavors that place them in a somewhat unique position, one that bridges the education and innovation sectors.  This means that through their work they come into contact with  a very diverse community and most of all some very interesting people doing exceptional things. Jennifer and Kathryn recognized that it would be beneficial to bring this wide range of innovators together to share ideas and engage in dialogue to see what might become of it.  I was honoured to be invited to attend and even more honoured to have my conference fee paid for in scholarship form by Microsoft Partners in Learning, one of the  sponsors of the event. 

The event was divided into two very distinct formats. Friday evening was for meeting people, informal conversations and then a series of speakers who presented using the Pecha Kucha model. It's always fun to get to meet new people and sitting at my table was, Rita Funder of Career Mash. I was familiar with Career Mash having visited their website a few times and it was a pleasure to meet the woman behind the organization. Career Mash is funded by industry. Its goal is to make students aware of the how technology mashes together with all careers and to show them the many career possibilities available if they are technologically literate. I found out from Rita that their organization's mandate has grown to cover south-western Ontario and she was seeking ways to bring Career Mash's services to us. What a great connection. After the event I was able to put Career Mash in contact with my principal and am looking forward to role models visiting our school to share their experiences and expertise with middle school students at no cost to us.

The presentations then got underway. It was impressive to see the range of ideas, creativity and possibilities that each speaker offered as a way to bring innovation to education. A few stand out in my mind. 

The first was Andy Forest of Maker Kids Andy runs a hacking centre for kids. Kids can come and make - whatever they want - using grown up tools - and their own ideas. They can design, build, test, fail, redesign, improve, and learn.  Every school needs a Maker Kids space. Currently, most learners in our schools spend their days directed and instructed by teachers. In many cases, standardized testing has narrowed our focus, instructional goals and expectations.  Listening to Andy speak about how confident and engaged young innovators are in the space he offers, once again made me question many of our current education practices.

Another speaker who stood out was Ashley Lewis.  Ashley matches none of the geek stereotypes so often seen in  media. Ashley is young, vibrant and doing some very cool work. Some of you may have come across it recently if you visited the TIFF James Bond exhibit  which just ended in Toronto. One of Ashley's many projects involves teaching girls to code. It was inspiring to see her vision of girls as creators rather consumers of technology.  When I returned to school, I was able to put two of my former students who had been instrumental in the success of our App project, in contact with her as they had been looking for a next step.

Two more were Mandy Wintink and Julian Diego. Mandy is looking to reinvent post-secondary education.  Julian of Sketch is bringing hope to street youth by providing a space where they can explore the transformative power of creativity. All speakers that evening offered exceptional ideas and are involved in some amazing projects. I strongly recommend you visit the Makes Waves Here site to learn more.

Saturday was organized with a different purpose. It was a day to delve more deeply into ideas about education.  It began, however, with Zumba, an activity designed to take us right out of our comfort zones. Mission accomplished! It certainly brought the energy level up and put us in the right frame of mind for the day.  

Tables were set up around the room covered in brown mural paper with markers and pens at the ready. Participants chose a seat and then were given a topic of discussion. The paper was there for us to document our conversation. Once time was up, participants changed tables to form new groups and were given a new question to consider. Over the course of the morning we were given three different questions to discuss.

What is school for?  
What is the future of education now? 
How can we change education systems? 

 Conversations were rich, often filled with laughter and highly engaging.  I appreciated being at tables with people from all levels of education as well as with those outside of education  who bring a broader perspective to education conversations. 

We were also given time to explore our own creativity. We were seated in two rows facing each other. Each person in one row was given a different small Lego structure and we had 1 minute to come up with 10 explanations of what it was. After one minute the Lego was passed down the line. We also had to build something with Lego pieces within a given time and explain its purpose.

Lunch was fabulous.

During the afternoon we had the opportunity to pose our own questions for discussion.  The question that stood out for me centered on money. How do we fund technology and innovation projects in our schools given the current financial climate – a very worthy topic. I learned that it is possible to access grant money. I was able to share how to enter technology contests and competitions to win prize money. One person is working on a fabulous project to bring sustainable funding to innovative initiatives and I am looking forward to the launch of that one.  Many more ideas were generated. It felt as if we were in an idea incubator and I really appreciated the opportunity to have this discussion.

The day ended with a closing circle and a chance to share what we had gotten out of the day as well as where we might go next in our desire to bring innovative practices to education. Once again we had three questions to consider:

What can I do? 
What can we do? 
What is bigger than us? 

Islands of Excellence left us with new connections, compelling ideas and a vision for the future of education. The question now is how do we build bridges between these isolated pockets of innovation and expand these types of initiatives so that more learners have the opportunity to experience a different approach to education that matches more appropriately the requirements of today?