The 3rd keynote speaker was Dr Weissberg. I missed a large part of his talk as I was not feeling well and went to Watson's to get some medication. On my way back, I spotted a JC classmate who was also not feeling well. We ended up talking (some frivolous stuffs) and by the time I felt well enough to go in, the talk had almost ended. I did manage to take down the following URL though: 

http://www.casel.org

The visit to IBM was not as exciting as I expected. We were given a few talks by executives then brought around the building to look at some of the innovative corporate implementations. What did caught my attention was how the marketing director described the difference between invention and innovation. Essentially, invention is the creation of something new. Innovation, on the other hand, is invention with insight - creating new things that solve problems or make something better. 

I must admit, I'm quite surprised that of all the keynote speakers, the best turned out to be the 2nd Permanent Secretary. She was eloquent, funny, and able to connect with the audience of teachers. She also came out as being honest rather than bureaucratic, and some of what she said and her responses to questions surprised me.

A main focus of her talk was on the changes that are happening in the education landscape. There are mainly four points:

1. Options - in the form of paths and choices
2. Autonomy - for schools
3. Motivation
4. Quality of interaction

She also shared many examples of successful teachers and ideas, including video clips, teachers' powerpoint slides and reflections. Overall, the message is not that different from what has been passed down over the past few years - changes and innovations.  read more »

It's the 1st day of the Teachers Conference. The opening was, frankly, quite bad. It was very cliche and I wished I could find a hole to hide my head out of embarassment. But the video they showed - an excerpt from the BBC documentary "Trials of Life" - about birds weaving their nests, was quite good. The speech by Angela Ow was, erm, pointless. The opening address by Tharman was not as good as some of his better ones. Overall quite a waste of time for the morning.

The first keynote address was delivered by Dr John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corp and current Distinguished fellow of Idea Factory, was quite good though it contained nothing new for me. I guess after a while and some experiences of going to conferences you will hear the same things being repeated. He did have one thing I've not heard of though - the KEEP toolkit.  read more »