There is an old proverb, as it is easier to catch flies with vinegar than honey. And “very real, as a metaphor for how to treat people in your life, but not really when it comes to the healing properties of honey and vinegar. Both parts honey and vinegar is the home of various diseases. It is interesting that helping the victims. So the next time you are at home and get hurt, you can go into the kitchen and medicine cabinet.

Those who regularly use home remedies often use honey to help heal wounds. There are several reasons. First, put the honey wound represents a barrier for the wound from the outside world to protect, the prevention of infections. It seems odd at first glance infected, because honey everything they touched, but when you see the honey into a thick gel on the wound, you can see, that dirt on the surface, but it is not possible to to prevent dirt from entering the body .

Flying to Johannesburg the other day, I had my first aborted take-off ever – and it happened to be also the first time I was capturing the take-off on film (sorry, I ended up wiping the footage to capture more photos instead!)

It got me thinking, though, about my own experience with flying and my relatively newfound passion for the experience. I don't think I'd say I was ever terrified of flying, but I wouldn't hesitate to categorize myself as scared whenever some bumps would come about during my journey.

When we arrived back at a stand to have the engineers check out the indication warning (which had since cleared), the pilot popped down to introduce himself and have a chat about the problem (a sensor that detected that a access door to the belly of our 747 was open, even though it wasn’t). And in my mind, I found myself remembering the first moment when I was amazed by these machines, and it was in a company of a captain just like the one shaking my hand...

My dad, you see, was an avid collector of points during his own travels. My rabid fascination with loyalty programs today would make him proud, I'm sure, and the experiences I've been able to have thanks to the many points accumulated from my busy travel schedule are something I'm thankful for every day. He saved up points from dozens of business trips to Atlanta, where his company was headquartered, and conferences all over the continent that he visited in his marketing and sales position for NCR, a major retail technology company. Enough points that we were able to take a family vacation to Vancouver on a massive 747-400, in business class, and from my vague recollection, we were amongst the only guests seated in the upper deck that day. Once we were in flight, he arranged for us to visit the flight deck, where the captain enthusiastically gave us a tour of the cockpit and showed us all the levers and switches and dials that controlled the powerful machine. With me on his lap, came the moment I’ll never forget: He held my hand in his and reached for a dial that adjusted the level of the aircraft, and slowly turned it a few notches to the right – we immediately observed the plane gracefully veer right, ever so gently, and then we adjusted it back. Wow! I was entranced by this amazing machine, but it was time to go back to our seats and let the pilot and first officer get us to the west coast. Someday soon, I'll be ready to take a course and try my hand at flying for the fun of it - but until then, I'll trust the pilots to do that for me.

From 32,000 feet,

Mike

A human rights-based approach to schooling is concerned with the organisation of learning so that it is reflective of human rights principles and promotes understanding and cherishing of the human rights framework.

Facilitate the discussions in your Community!
Read & join the Project Page for the 1st Annual European Mutli Ancestral Multi Religious Reformation.
http://projects.tigweb.org/AWE_EUReformation
Begin your Blog Contribution to the Discussion on your everyday issues, Community Problems & Questions you have of the Youth Leadership Community with respect to the Future in your Region.
Thanks for joining the Planning [...]

Youth Leadership will rn1. Provide European (Western) Union Youth with Paths toward Peace, Stability in Family & Community & Sustainable Natural Resources,rn2. Provide European (Western) Union Youth with guidance on Earth BioSphere Education supporting Native Indigenous Ancestral Communities of Well Being,rn3. Provide Youth Leadership Community Opportunities to Partner with other Organizations & Youth Leaders to support Entrepreneurialism, Diplomacy, Career & Community Support.

Now it's Time. WORLD PEACE IS ATTAINABLE.

"Be the Change": use the leverage of research & information on Illegal Systems & EXPOSE FRAUD, Exponential Exploitation to affect support for the Native Indigenous Ancestral Communities of Well Being.

When you cook with electricity, gas, wood or propane, you pay hard earned money for the fuel that you use, while much of the energy in the fuel gets wasted as heat in your kitchen or outside. With solar cooking, your fuel is the free energy of the sun, which has never to our knowledge sent a bill, and never will. If you replace your backyard barbeque with a solar cooker and use it regularly, your cooker will pay its cost back in fuel savings within 3 years. For the remaining 17+ years, you are cooking literally for free.

Celebrated in 100 countries around the world, YPWC service as one of the regional lead agencies for the GYS events and celebrations in central Africa and WestAfrica.

There are many sides to a building depending on which side you are viewing form. The side we love to see is that which has the best of aesthetic.Oftentimes we neglect the most important part in our judgement.
Our clue to judgement depends on what we one to see in the character in question. The bad sides we often complain about tells how much time we have devoted to the person. Just a moment longer may give clarity to our perception of initial weakness or flaw in the person.Anyway,a moment longer tells what is present in the person in question,and most times we see they are stronger than we thought.

Wishes to all my readers this festive season. I hope will have a wonderful time with your loved ones?You can as soon as you understand they are the most important part of you and the feelings you pass to them lasts most, especialy the younger generation.Do not spoil them with so much money but lavish them with your love and attention.Also remember to lend some helping hand to the peasant on the street and the old woman next door.It is a season of love so lavish yours!

Gothenburg, Sweden, 24 Nov 09

UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka on Tuesday was given the coveted Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development. Widely known as the “Nobel Prize for the Environment”, she shared the 2009 award with Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, and the world renowned hero of the environment, Sören Hermansen, of Samsö, Denmark.

The ceremony on Tuesday marked the 10th anniversary of the award, which this year stressed the the urban dimension of the climate change and environment debate.
“Rapidly growing cities and towns house half of the world’s population. They represent 75 percent of all energy consumption and generate 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” said the Jury Chairman Stefan Edman.

“This means that the battle to create more sustainable cities and urban environments – environmentally and socially – is one of the most decisive factors facing the UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen in December. For this reason the Göteborg Award, one million Swedish crowns, is shared equally by three people who have found new solutions to these enormous challenges,” he said. “We are thrilled to award our jubilee prize to these brilliant visionaries, strategists and system transformers.”

The Jury cited Mrs. Tibaijuka for raising the profile of UN-HABITAT and the importance of urban sustainability as a key to a better future.

In her acceptance speech she said she felt “honoured and humbled” at the great recognition conferred upon her and the agency.

“I accept this this award not only for myself but also for my colleagues at UN-HABITAT who have stood at my side in our campaign for sustainable urbanisation,” she said.

“We continue to seek an end to homelessness, urban poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and suffering throughout the world. If we cannot secure the hyman habitat, we shall not be able to secure the environment,” she said.

Mr. Peñalosa stressed the importance of cities that accommodate all their citizens, making all feel that they belong, so that, for example, “a person who cycles to work has as much right to get around safely as someone who drives a thirty-thousand dollar car”.

Mr. Hermansen said it should always be remembered that climate change and the environment are not matters of science alone, but rather all about people, and that people in the world had to learn how to share better. For details on the award, click here.

Dear All,

On behalf of UN-HABITAT kindly find the following updates on preparations for the Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum to be held in Rio de Janeiro, March 2010.

1. The Conference Agreement for the Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum UN-HABITAT's Executive Director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, and the Host Country, represented by H.E. Mrs. Ana Maria Sampaio, Permanent Representative of the Federative Republic of Brazil to UN-HABITAT, yesterday afternoon signed the WUF5 Conference Agreement laying down the foundation for a successful Forum in the City of Rio de Janeiro in March 2010. Please see full story at http://www.unhabitat.org/.

2. E-debate - reminder
As part of the Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum, whose theme is The Right to the City: Bridging the Urban Divide, UN-Habitat is holding an on-line e-debate on all six Dialogues of the Forum. The e-debate was opened on Monday 21 September, and one discussion on Dialogue 3 has
already been completed successfully. At the moment the discussion on Dialgoue 2 is on-going and everyone is encouraged to sign up and access the on-line forum at: http://forum.unhabitat.org.

3. Networking Events - reminder
The call for Networking Events is open and applications will be received until 30 November 2009.

4. Training Events - reminder
Call for applications from organizers to host a training event is ongoing and the deadline for submissions is the 31 October 2009.

5. Registration
online registration was opened on Thursday, 8 October and already over 411 participants from 64 countries has registered to date.

More information on World Urban Youth Assembly will be coming up shortly, meanwhile if you are planning to go to attend both WUYA and WUF5, please register online and apply for the visa in good time.

All information, application forms and more on the Forum may be found on our website at: http://www.unhabitat.org/wuf


Best regards,

In 2000, Jennifer and I travelled to Lorne, Australia at the invitation of Bruce Dixon, our mentor and friend, educator and evangelist for 1:1 computing in the classroom. We spoke at the Expanding Learning Horizons conference, and our vision for TakingITGlobal and just-launched site attracted a wave of attention. We hadn’t fully thought about the potential for the TakingITGlobal community to be used as a learning tool in the classroom.

Fast-forward almost a decade, and TakingITGlobal's TIGed (short for "TakingITGlobal for Educators") program has had the benefit of a 3-year Partners in Learning grant from Microsoft to support development and scale, and has inspired and supported thousands of schools in over 80 countries in their global education endeavours.

In 2007, I keynoted the Australian Council for Educational Leaders annual conference in Sydney, Australia. I don’t remember much – I was knocked out by a terrible cold, and arrived that morning with 3 cups full of herbal tea and a mouthful of lozenges, just hoping I’d be able to survive the keynote with anyone understanding our work. Apparently I did more than that – I was really overwhelmed and honoured to have such a positive response, so much so that my colleague and friend Jenny Lewis, ACEL’s CEO, announced at the conference closing that Jennifer would come and do a joint presentation with me 2 years later at their 2009 event.

Last year, ACEL invited me back as their “travelling scholar” – I gave 6-hour professional development seminars across the country, starting in Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Canberra, and finally in Sydney (with a few other conferences in between). Having that much time to work with school leaders and educators has really helped me reconnect with my passion for supporting innovation in education, and helped us grow and refine the focus of the TIGed program. It also connected us with several other opportunities to ensure that the 2009 trip wouldn't just be for ACEL's event - in the end, we would reach five different events in the same trip!

On September 12th, we arrived in Sydney to begin our trip. Of course, we were thrilled to be able to spend a day with Jarra, one of the TIG founding team members, and the designer of the TIG logo. The following day, we headed to Hobart, Tasmania, for a two day stay to keynote the AHISA conference. AHISA stands for the Association of Heads of Independent Schools Australia, and we followed a great keynote providing an overview of the bombardment of media young people today face. Our presentation about the opportunity for school leaders to engage with TakingITGlobal as a positive way to engage young people in media, develop their critical thinking and media literacy skills, and connect with global issues provided a great next step for those wondering how they could turn this media-rich world into positive learning experiences for their students. We were pleased to have so many schools interested in implementing our brand new Tread Lightly initiative!

Next, we were off to Adelaide, for several days of work. First, with the State Government’s Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS), hosted by Margot Foster, coordinator of the Learning to Learn program there, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year in Adelaide when I keynoted the Middle Years Conference. Margot had brought together about 80 educators from across the state, some who drove four hours to attend, to engage in a full day of exploring youth engagement and TakingITGlobal’s programs at a beautiful golf course on the outskirts of Adelaide. We delivered our keynote, but unlike the session in Hobart, had the luxury of frequent breaks for questions and input, and by the end of the day, Jennifer got everyone talking. In the afternoon, they had a through guided tour of the TakingITGlobal site, and time to work with their tables on discussing and designing different ways they could address some of the challenges schools are facing with technology-empowered learners.

The next day, I gave the opening keynote speech for the Australasian Association of Distance Education schools, a perfect audience to understand the opportunity of our programs, as they all specialize in remote delivery of learning experiences – starting from the famous Australian “school of the air” and now leading some of the most innovative online delivery models in the world. After my keynote, I led two discussion sessions, which I was honoured to have moderated by Louise Bywaters, a brilliant consultant and incredibly experienced educator with many amazing stories to share. The following day, I joined several others on the closing panel for the conference, and was inspired by closing with everyone sharing the one or two things they would do in the future if they were starting a new school from scratch. I talked about the importance of community partnership, which Macklin Public School used to make their Globalize This! Student film festival, a huge success, and an inspiration for the development of our Global Issues section. I also talked about the opportunity of using virtual experiences, like our education games, and virtual field trips, as a way to ensure students are connected with the world, and understand their privledge.

Zooming across the country, we landed in Darwin, where we had the opportunity to take a well-deserved break, catch up on work, and enjoy some sunny weather. The following Friday, we joined some colleagues and friends and many new faces for a beautiful dinner under the palm trees and starry skies. The following day, we were lucky to have a double slot for our session – 1 hour and 50 minutes for our keynote! At ACEL in 2007, we ran out of time for questions, but this time, we integrated discussions and Q&A into our whole talk – as difficult as it sometimes was in a massive theatre, Jen made the best of it and rushed into the crowd to encourage and facilitate participation!

We reconnected with a number of people who saw me in 2007, and spoke of the steps they’ve already taken to bring some of our ideas into their schools – with even more ideas sparked by hearing of our latest programs. Even more hadn’t ever heard of us before, and were excited to get engaged, with Tread Lightly being one of the first opportunities. We re-connected with Simon Breakspear, and caught part of his session, working to redefine the image and brand of education, and encouraging and supporting innovative ideas in the youngest educators in schools.

We spent Sunday afternoon in the air, returning to Sydney and heard much about the aftermath of Australia’s worst ever dust storm, which blanketed the city, grounded flights, and triggered breathing problems in thousands of people. On Monday, we visited Amanda McKenzie at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, who we hope to work more closely with as part of our work at Copenhagen and with Tread Lightly, and met Jarra with Nick Moraitis, another of our founding team members, at the new offices for their multimedia consultancy, Make Believe. Monday night we spent with James Moody, who was part of the Youth Caucus at WSSD in Johannesburg in 2003, where we kicked off our involvement in UN policy processes so many years ago.

On Tuesday, Jen flew out to head to UNESCO’s Youth Forum in Paris, and I ventured over to Trinity Grammar School to keynote the Association of Independent Schools’ Technology Integrators Conference, sharing our work with about 120 leaders from independent schools across New South Wales. This was the first time I’ve given a keynote with a live twitter backchannel on screens beside me, which was a really interesting way to challenge myself to respond real-time to audience comments and feedback! I was lucky to have lots of positive feedback and input along with some great questions to discuss, and am excited to follow-up and hold a more hands-on follow-up event when I return next March.

Overall, we're quite pleased with the impact of the opportunities we had to share our message and vision. Both because of how many people were thrilled to hear about us for the first time, and immediately saw connections with so many issues Australia is dealing with today (water issues & immigration came up frequently) - but also to re-connect with many people who’d heard one of us before, and were excited to re-engage. Everyone I spoke to felt equipped with a deeper understanding of how our programs at TakingITGlobal can help in supporting their quest to ensure meaningful use of technology, explore global collaboration & understanding, and develop creativity, innovation, and critical thinking skills in their schools! To ensure all of this interest & engagement across Australia is sustained and built on, we'll be working with ACEL over the next months to build out a TIGed program model to be implemented across the country, to support and engage a vibrant community of practice around global education & collaboration through technology.

In 2000, Jennifer and I travelled to Lorne, Australia at the invitation of Bruce Dixon, our mentor and friend, educator and evangelist for 1:1 computing in the classroom. We spoke at the Expanding Learning Horizons conference, and our vision for TakingITGlobal and just-launched site attracted a wave of attention. We hadn’t fully thought about the potential for the TakingITGlobal community to be used as a learning tool in the classroom.

Fast-forward almost a decade, and TakingITGlobal's TIGed (short for "TakingITGlobal for Educators") program has had the benefit of a 3-year Partners in Learning grant from Microsoft to support development and scale, and has inspired and supported thousands of schools in over 80 countries in their global education endeavours.

In 2007, I keynoted the Australian Council for Educational Leaders annual conference in Sydney, Australia. I don’t remember much – I was knocked out by a terrible cold, and arrived that morning with 3 cups full of herbal tea and a mouthful of lozenges, just hoping I’d be able to survive the keynote with anyone understanding our work. Apparently I did more than that – I was really overwhelmed and honoured to have such a positive response, so much so that my colleague and friend Jenny Lewis, ACEL’s CEO, announced at the conference closing that Jennifer would come and do a joint presentation with me 2 years later at their 2009 event.

Last year, ACEL invited me back as their “travelling scholar” – I gave 6-hour professional development seminars across the country, starting in Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Canberra, and finally in Sydney (with a few other conferences in between). Having that much time to work with school leaders and educators has really helped me reconnect with my passion for supporting innovation in education, and helped us grow and refine the focus of the TIGed program. It also connected us with several other opportunities to ensure that the 2009 trip wouldn't just be for ACEL's event - in the end, we would reach five different events in the same trip!

On September 12th, we arrived in Sydney to begin our trip. Of course, we were thrilled to be able to spend a day with Jarra, one of the TIG founding team members, and the designer of the TIG logo. The following day, we headed to Hobart, Tasmania, for a two day stay to keynote the AHISA conference. AHISA stands for the Association of Heads of Independent Schools Australia, and we followed a great keynote providing an overview of the bombardment of media young people today face. Our presentation about the opportunity for school leaders to engage with TakingITGlobal as a positive way to engage young people in media, develop their critical thinking and media literacy skills, and connect with global issues provided a great next step for those wondering how they could turn this media-rich world into positive learning experiences for their students. We were pleased to have so many schools interested in implementing our brand new Tread Lightly initiative!

Next, we were off to Adelaide, for several days of work. First, with the State Government’s Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS), hosted by Margot Foster, coordinator of the Learning to Learn program there, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year in Adelaide when I keynoted the Middle Years Conference. Margot had brought together about 80 educators from across the state, some who drove four hours to attend, to engage in a full day of exploring youth engagement and TakingITGlobal’s programs at a beautiful golf course on the outskirts of Adelaide. We delivered our keynote, but unlike the session in Hobart, had the luxury of frequent breaks for questions and input, and by the end of the day, Jennifer got everyone talking. In the afternoon, they had a through guided tour of the TakingITGlobal site, and time to work with their tables on discussing and designing different ways they could address some of the challenges schools are facing with technology-empowered learners.

The next day, I gave the opening keynote speech for the Australasian Association of Distance Education schools, a perfect audience to understand the opportunity of our programs, as they all specialize in remote delivery of learning experiences – starting from the famous Australian “school of the air” and now leading some of the most innovative online delivery models in the world. After my keynote, I led two discussion sessions, which I was honoured to have moderated by Louise Bywaters, a brilliant consultant and incredibly experienced educator with many amazing stories to share. The following day, I joined several others on the closing panel for the conference, and was inspired by closing with everyone sharing the one or two things they would do in the future if they were starting a new school from scratch. I talked about the importance of community partnership, which Macklin Public School used to make their Globalize This! Student film festival, a huge success, and an inspiration for the development of our Global Issues section. I also talked about the opportunity of using virtual experiences, like our education games, and virtual field trips, as a way to ensure students are connected with the world, and understand their privledge.

Zooming across the country, we landed in Darwin, where we had the opportunity to take a well-deserved break, catch up on work, and enjoy some sunny weather. The following Friday, we joined some colleagues and friends and many new faces for a beautiful dinner under the palm trees and starry skies. The following day, we were lucky to have a double slot for our session – 1 hour and 50 minutes for our keynote! At ACEL in 2007, we ran out of time for questions, but this time, we integrated discussions and Q&A into our whole talk – as difficult as it sometimes was in a massive theatre, Jen made the best of it and rushed into the crowd to encourage and facilitate participation!

We reconnected with a number of people who saw me in 2007, and spoke of the steps they’ve already taken to bring some of our ideas into their schools – with even more ideas sparked by hearing of our latest programs. Even more hadn’t ever heard of us before, and were excited to get engaged, with Tread Lightly being one of the first opportunities. We re-connected with Simon Breakspear, and caught part of his session, working to redefine the image and brand of education, and encouraging and supporting innovative ideas in the youngest educators in schools.

We spent Sunday afternoon in the air, returning to Sydney and heard much about the aftermath of Australia’s worst ever dust storm, which blanketed the city, grounded flights, and triggered breathing problems in thousands of people. On Monday, we visited Amanda McKenzie at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, who we hope to work more closely with as part of our work at Copenhagen and with Tread Lightly, and met Jarra with Nick Moraitis, another of our founding team members, at the new offices for their multimedia consultancy, Make Believe. Monday night we spent with James Moody, who was part of the Youth Caucus at WSSD in Johannesburg in 2003, where we kicked off our involvement in UN policy processes so many years ago.

On Tuesday, Jen flew out to head to UNESCO’s Youth Forum in Paris, and I ventured over to Trinity Grammar School to keynote the Association of Independent Schools’ Technology Integrators Conference, sharing our work with about 120 leaders from independent schools across New South Wales. This was the first time I’ve given a keynote with a live twitter backchannel on screens beside me, which was a really interesting way to challenge myself to respond real-time to audience comments and feedback! I was lucky to have lots of positive feedback and input along with some great questions to discuss, and am excited to follow-up and hold a more hands-on follow-up event when I return next March.

Overall, we're quite pleased with the impact of the opportunities we had to share our message and vision. Both because of how many people were thrilled to hear about us for the first time, and immediately saw connections with so many issues Australia is dealing with today (water issues & immigration came up frequently) - but also to re-connect with many people who’d heard one of us before, and were excited to re-engage. Everyone I spoke to felt equipped with a deeper understanding of how our programs at TakingITGlobal can help in supporting their quest to ensure meaningful use of technology, explore global collaboration & understanding, and develop creativity, innovation, and critical thinking skills in their schools! To ensure all of this interest & engagement across Australia is sustained and built on, we'll be working with ACEL over the next months to build out a TIGed program model to be implemented across the country, to support and engage a vibrant community of practice around global education & collaboration through technology.

In 2000, Jennifer and I travelled to Lorne, Australia at the invitation of Bruce Dixon, our mentor and friend, educator and evangelist for 1:1 computing in the classroom. We spoke at the Expanding Learning Horizons conference, and our vision for TakingITGlobal and just-launched site attracted a wave of attention. We hadn’t fully thought about the potential for the TakingITGlobal community to be used as a learning tool in the classroom.

Fast-forward almost a decade, and TakingITGlobal's TIGed (short for "TakingITGlobal for Educators") program has had the benefit of a 3-year Partners in Learning grant from Microsoft to support development and scale, and has inspired and supported thousands of schools in over 80 countries in their global education endeavours.

In 2007, I keynoted the Australian Council for Educational Leaders annual conference in Sydney, Australia. I don’t remember much – I was knocked out by a terrible cold, and arrived that morning with 3 cups full of herbal tea and a mouthful of lozenges, just hoping I’d be able to survive the keynote with anyone understanding our work. Apparently I did more than that – I was really overwhelmed and honoured to have such a positive response, so much so that my colleague and friend Jenny Lewis, ACEL’s CEO, announced at the conference closing that Jennifer would come and do a joint presentation with me 2 years later at their 2009 event.

Last year, ACEL invited me back as their “travelling scholar” – I gave 6-hour professional development seminars across the country, starting in Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Canberra, and finally in Sydney (with a few other conferences in between). Having that much time to work with school leaders and educators has really helped me reconnect with my passion for supporting innovation in education, and helped us grow and refine the focus of the TIGed program. It also connected us with several other opportunities to ensure that the 2009 trip wouldn't just be for ACEL's event - in the end, we would reach five different events in the same trip!

On September 12th, we arrived in Sydney to begin our trip. Of course, we were thrilled to be able to spend a day with Jarra, one of the TIG founding team members, and the designer of the TIG logo. The following day, we headed to Hobart, Tasmania, for a two day stay to keynote the AHISA conference. AHISA stands for the Association of Heads of Independent Schools Australia, and we followed a great keynote providing an overview of the bombardment of media young people today face. Our presentation about the opportunity for school leaders to engage with TakingITGlobal as a positive way to engage young people in media, develop their critical thinking and media literacy skills, and connect with global issues provided a great next step for those wondering how they could turn this media-rich world into positive learning experiences for their students. We were pleased to have so many schools interested in implementing our brand new Tread Lightly initiative!

Next, we were off to Adelaide, for several days of work. First, with the State Government’s Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS), hosted by Margot Foster, coordinator of the Learning to Learn program there, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year in Adelaide when I keynoted the Middle Years Conference. Margot had brought together about 80 educators from across the state, some who drove four hours to attend, to engage in a full day of exploring youth engagement and TakingITGlobal’s programs at a beautiful golf course on the outskirts of Adelaide. We delivered our keynote, but unlike the session in Hobart, had the luxury of frequent breaks for questions and input, and by the end of the day, Jennifer got everyone talking. In the afternoon, they had a through guided tour of the TakingITGlobal site, and time to work with their tables on discussing and designing different ways they could address some of the challenges schools are facing with technology-empowered learners.

The next day, I gave the opening keynote speech for the Australasian Association of Distance Education schools, a perfect audience to understand the opportunity of our programs, as they all specialize in remote delivery of learning experiences – starting from the famous Australian “school of the air” and now leading some of the most innovative online delivery models in the world. After my keynote, I led two discussion sessions, which I was honoured to have moderated by Louise Bywaters, a brilliant consultant and incredibly experienced educator with many amazing stories to share. The following day, I joined several others on the closing panel for the conference, and was inspired by closing with everyone sharing the one or two things they would do in the future if they were starting a new school from scratch. I talked about the importance of community partnership, which Macklin Public School used to make their Globalize This! Student film festival, a huge success, and an inspiration for the development of our Global Issues section. I also talked about the opportunity of using virtual experiences, like our education games, and virtual field trips, as a way to ensure students are connected with the world, and understand their privledge.

Zooming across the country, we landed in Darwin, where we had the opportunity to take a well-deserved break, catch up on work, and enjoy some sunny weather. The following Friday, we joined some colleagues and friends and many new faces for a beautiful dinner under the palm trees and starry skies. The following day, we were lucky to have a double slot for our session – 1 hour and 50 minutes for our keynote! At ACEL in 2007, we ran out of time for questions, but this time, we integrated discussions and Q&A into our whole talk – as difficult as it sometimes was in a massive theatre, Jen made the best of it and rushed into the crowd to encourage and facilitate participation!

We reconnected with a number of people who saw me in 2007, and spoke of the steps they’ve already taken to bring some of our ideas into their schools – with even more ideas sparked by hearing of our latest programs. Even more hadn’t ever heard of us before, and were excited to get engaged, with Tread Lightly being one of the first opportunities. We re-connected with Simon Breakspear, and caught part of his session, working to redefine the image and brand of education, and encouraging and supporting innovative ideas in the youngest educators in schools.

We spent Sunday afternoon in the air, returning to Sydney and heard much about the aftermath of Australia’s worst ever dust storm, which blanketed the city, grounded flights, and triggered breathing problems in thousands of people. On Monday, we visited Amanda McKenzie at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, who we hope to work more closely with as part of our work at Copenhagen and with Tread Lightly, and met Jarra with Nick Moraitis, another of our founding team members, at the new offices for their multimedia consultancy, Make Believe. Monday night we spent with James Moody, who was part of the Youth Caucus at WSSD in Johannesburg in 2003, where we kicked off our involvement in UN policy processes so many years ago.

On Tuesday, Jen flew out to head to UNESCO’s Youth Forum in Paris, and I ventured over to Trinity Grammar School to keynote the Association of Independent Schools’ Technology Integrators Conference, sharing our work with about 120 leaders from independent schools across New South Wales. This was the first time I’ve given a keynote with a live twitter backchannel on screens beside me, which was a really interesting way to challenge myself to respond real-time to audience comments and feedback! I was lucky to have lots of positive feedback and input along with some great questions to discuss, and am excited to follow-up and hold a more hands-on follow-up event when I return next March.

Overall, we're quite pleased with the impact of the opportunities we had to share our message and vision. Both because of how many people were thrilled to hear about us for the first time, and immediately saw connections with so many issues Australia is dealing with today (water issues & immigration came up frequently) - but also to re-connect with many people who’d heard one of us before, and were excited to re-engage. Everyone I spoke to felt equipped with a deeper understanding of how our programs at TakingITGlobal can help in supporting their quest to ensure meaningful use of technology, explore global collaboration & understanding, and develop creativity, innovation, and critical thinking skills in their schools! To ensure all of this interest & engagement across Australia is sustained and built on, we'll be working with ACEL over the next months to build out a TIGed program model to be implemented across the country, to support and engage a vibrant community of practice around global education & collaboration through technology.