Learning Live - Orchard Project

Our Orchard Group were invited to attend the FOBISSEA Leadership Conference in Penang at the weekend to run a Learning Live session. They rose to the challenge of sharing their views and ideas with the leaders of some of the top international schools across SE Asia. They impressed a very difficult audience with their passion and subject knowledge, and engaged the delegates in important conversations about their learning. Check out the video to see what happened.

Orchards Project

Get up early on a Sunday morning, come in to school & spend the day working hard with fellow students from across three year groups. Who would do that? A very enthusiastic and dedicated bunch of students, that's who.

Or maybe they are less 'Student' and more "Learner'. This was one of the concepts we explored as we began the first steps on our new & innovative Orchard Project. The team who are driving this exciting project are: Naomi, Nicolai, Daniel, Farah, Manett, Kelvin, Josh, Mei, Han-Yi, Shunna, Irene, Megan, & Melissa. 

Learner or Student?

The Orchards Project is an innovation being implemented by Apple Distinguished Educators in 3 countries - Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The students involved will become advocates - showcasing, modeling and speaking out with a credible voice - to help schools create and articulate a vision for connected, personalised learning.

The Orchards Project aims to create frameworks which will help schools to effectively engage learners and teacher-learners in an exploration of how technology tools can personalise learning, and how to better design learning experiences and spaces which connect to the lives young people live. This may include:

- working with ADEs within their country to create and publish examples of participatory, production-centred learning

- helping teachers to design learning experiences and spaces which connect to the lives young people live

- helping teachers to understand how technology tools can personalise learning working with schools to test the infrastructure requirements necessary to support connected and personalised learning models (network access, appropriate productivity apps, appropriate communication & storage environments, etc).

The KL Orchard Group

There is hope that some members of the Orchard group in each of the three countries will showcase their learning in a live studio at regional conferences this term. For the Singapore Orchard Group this means participating in Learning 2.013; for the Malaysia Orchard Group this involves participating in the FOBISSEA Leadership Conference; and the Thailand Orchard Group will take part in the EARCOS Leadership Conference.

Teachers Geeking-Out

- a dozen great teachers
- heaps of creativity
- a stack of Apple technology
- an endless supply of food & coffee
- piles of energy and enthusiasm
- loads and loads of quality learning

That's how I spent the last 3 days.