CoSN Conference 2019

I had the privilege of attending the CoSN conference in Portland Oregon this year. For anyone in Australia who is in Ed Tech., this is a "must go" opportunity to mix with international counterparts. The 2019 IT Leadership Survey is a survey that takes the pulse of IT educational leaders. For those that used to read every word of the New Media Consortium Horizon Report on emerging trends in IT and digital learning, this has been replaced by CoSN's Driving K-12 Innovation report. This is put together by large advisory of expert educators which includes Dr. Ruben Puentedura of SAMR fame and several Australian experts.

Highlights of this year's conference included both the opening and closing keynotes, several panel sessions on the above, what makes Finland's education system so successful, how Sweden and Finland differ in educational perspectives, the future of artificial intelligence and how we can prepare students for it, tech trends from the nation's leading networks, optimising the investment made in educational technology using John Hattie's validation impact measurement and how the role of maker spaces continues to be refined. It was of interest to note that North Carolina mandates 20 hours of Professional Learning in digital learning for all leadership positions (ie Superintendents, Principals and VPs) - something we could learn from in Australia.

There's little doubt that we continue to only scratch the surface of what is achievable in using ICT to promote learning. Educators continue to experience cognitive dissonance regarding how to best use technology to support student learning. More often than not, we see technology used primarily to promote low-level, not particularly effective uses for classroom technology and then wonder why digital learning is not impacting positively on student learning. In terms of SAMR, many schools remain at the "Substitute" level in their use of digital learning in their curriculum assessment tasks. The T3 Framework was another pedagogical construct that has significant implications for learning in schools with technology. The theme of the conference was an ambitious tilt at envisioning what learning will look like in 2030 and attempted to address the OECD Future of Education and Skill 2030 Project. Our Federal Government's "Australia 2030: Prosperity Through Innovation" paper included several themes covered off in the conference.

Special thanks to Keith Krueger for his hospitality, encouragement and warm welcome at the conference. Congratulations to the CoSN team for their planning and an outstanding programme. It was a privilege and great to meet and work with Dr. Beverley Knox-Pipes and Stuart Mitchell in planning our session.