{"id":3252,"date":"2014-07-01T10:48:42","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/?p=3252"},"modified":"2014-07-01T11:55:52","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T01:55:52","slug":"two-days-at-edutech-2014-where-education-and-technology-get-weird-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/features\/two-days-at-edutech-2014-where-education-and-technology-get-weird-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Days At EduTECH 2014: Where Education And Technology Get Weird Together"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I walked into EduTECH 2014<\/a> at the Brisbane Convention Centre on Tuesday\u00a0morning, lukewarm coffee in hand, and sidled up to the ticket registration bar.<\/span> A flustered organiser was tapping away on a PC with a\u00a0worried\u00a0look on his\u00a0face. He was making a\u00a0clicking noise with his mouse. You know the one.<\/p>\n

That rhythmic, slow, repetitive *click*<\/strong> that people make when they expected a thing to work and it hasn’t? Click. Click. Cliiiiiiick.\u00a0<\/em>He looked up at me with despairing eyes.\u00a0“Ah…\u00a0sorry mate, this ticket machine isn’t working, you’ll have to head over to that desk instead.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Undeterred, I sidestepped over to another willing volunteer, who took my name and printed a press badge for me. She glanced\u00a0at it, a little confused and said, “Oh, looks like it only printed half your badge. That’s weird. Oh well, here you go!”<\/em><\/p>\n

I thanked her, looped the lanyard and half-badge over my head and wandered into the brightly-lit exhibition hall, toward the this-is-big<\/em> sound, that thrum and pulse of a few thousand people all having conversations at once.<\/p>\n

I stepped inside, took the below\u00a0photo, and then joined the conference wifi to tweet it. It joined without a fuss, but then politely\u00a0refused to connect to the actual internet for the next 2 days.<\/p>\n

I used 4G instead.<\/p>\n

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A couple of tech-related snafus were an apt introduction to EduTECH<\/strong>;\u00a0a gathering\u00a0where technology collides with education. Where Adam Spencer<\/a>\u00a0introduces a bunch of international-calibre, education rock-stars like Sugata Mitra<\/a>, Sir Ken Robinson<\/a>\u00a0and Ewan McIntosh<\/a>\u00a0on a grand TED-esque\u00a0stage.<\/p>\n

\"Adam
\nPhoto: Adam Spencer – MC<\/a> by Michael Coghlan, on Flickr<\/p>\n

Where teachers share war stories about the changing world of teaching and learning in breakout rooms, on the crowded exhibition floor, or hovering over a paper plate of potato salad from the catering.<\/p>\n

It’s also a place where eager polo-shirted technology vendors from across the world will show you their new products and how they can revolutionise your classroom, or university, your training centre. Where you can talk to hundreds of exhibitors about what hardware, software and services you need for the years to come.<\/p>\n

And\u2014much like any classroom I’ve ever been in\u2014technology screws up too. Check-in counters don’t always work, the wifi sucks, projectors break, display units lock up or won’t load. It’s familiar, and entirely appropriate really, because this stuff happens constantly in education too. It’s one of the lessons you learn as a teacher, and it was\u00a0also very much present\u00a0here as a participant.<\/p>\n

So, what did I get out of it? Well, after 2 days of talking to teachers, IT management staff, institute directors, vendor booth representatives, education startup entrepreneurs and more, I came away with a picture of technology in education that is somewhat in the midst of an personality crisis.<\/p>\n