Learning @ Global World

7 – 8 September 2013, Buenos Aires Sheraton Hotel, Argentina

Conference Theme

Schools are no longer islands which stand alone but are necessarily part of a larger network which includes other schools, communities that surround them, partnerships with external educational organizations and social online learning networks. Addressing this reality entails reviewing the way learning and teaching is carried out in our schools.

This is enhanced by the fact that nowadays knowledge can be accessed freely and widely, having global communication transformed intercultural awareness. Along these two days, delegates will be able to explore issues such as self driven education, the use of online learning networks, cognitive classroom strategies to empower learning, leadership that supports learning and the role of architecture to enhance learning.

We are proud to bring to you the ideas of internationally renowned educators to help us unpack the various aspects of learning in a broader scenario, the global world.

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Sugata Mitra

2013 TED Talk Price Winner “The Future of Learning”

Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University in the UK and previously a Visiting Professor at MIT in the US.
He is the instigator of the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment, where in the year 1999 a computer was embedded within a wall in an Indian slum at Kalkaji, Delhi and children were allowed to freely use it:. The experiment aimed at providing that kids could be taught computers very easily without any formal training. Sugata termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated at many places.[learn_more]
His interests include Children’s Education, Remote Presence, Self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness.
The Hole in the Wall experiment has left a mark on popular culture. Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup read about Mitra’s experiment and was inspired to write his debut novel that went on to become the Oscar winning movie of 2009 – Sulmdog Millionaire.
He is a PHD in Physics credited with more than 25 inventions in the area of cognitive science and educational technology. He was conferred the prestigious Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology in the year 2005. Amongst many other awards, he was awarded the 1 million dollar TED Prize in 2013.
Starting with molecular orbital computation in the 1970s, Mitra discovered that the structure of organic molecules determine their function more than the
constituent atoms.
After a Ph.D in Solid State Physics from the IIT, Delhi, he went on to research energy storage systems, first at the Centre for Energy Studies in the IIT and then at the Technische Univesität, Vienna, Austria. This resulted in a new design for Zinc-Chlorine batteries. His interests in the flow of electricity through biological systems, a consequence of his Ph.D. research on exciton dissociation in organic semiconductors, led on to a seminally speculative paper on why the human sense organs are located where they are. His interest in computer networking led him towards the emerging systems in printing in the 1980s. He set up India’s first local area network based newspaper publishing system in 1984 and went on to predict the desktop publishing industry. This in turn led to the invention of LAN based database publishing and he created the “Yellow Pages” industry in India and Bangladesh. His interest in the human mind once again led him into the areas of learning and memeory and he was amongst the first in the world to show that simulated neural networks can help decipher the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease. He was amongst the first people in the world to invent Voluntary Perception Recording (a continuously variable voting machine) and a hyperlinked computing environment, several years ahead of the Internet. Professor Mitra’s work at NIIT created the first curricula and pedagogy for that organisation, followed by years of research on learning styles, learning devices, several of them now patented, multimedia and new methods of learning. Culminating and perhaps, towering over his previous work, are his “hole in the wall” experiments with children’s learning. Since 1999 he was convincingly demonstrated that groups of children, irrespective of who or where they are, can learn to use computers and the Internet on their own using public computers in open spaces such as roads and playgrounds. He brought these results to England in 2006 and invented Self Organised Learning Environments, now in use throughout the world. In 2009, he created the Granny Cloud, of teachers who interact with children over the Internet. Since the 1970s, Professor Mitra’s publications and work has resulted in training and development of perhaps a million young Indians, amongst them some of the poorest children in the world. The resultant changes in the lives of people and the economy of the country can only be guessed at.[/learn_more]

Guy Claxton

Author of “The Learning Powered School”

Guy Claxton is a worldwide authority on the development of young people’s learning and creative capacities. He is the author of many books and articles. His bestseller “What’s the Point of School?” was highly praised by Professor Howard Gardner, Sir Ken Robinson and Carol Dweck. Most recently, The Learning Powered School, published in 2011, shows us what the pioneers have been doing and how Building Learning Power has been transforming their schools. His Building Learning Power approach to creating learning cultures in schools and colleges has influenced youngsters’ lives throughout the world. Guy Claxton holds degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, and is currently Professor of the Learning Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, UK.

Will Richardson

Author of the bestseller “Why School?”

A parent of two teen-agers, Will Richardson has spent the last dozen years developing an international reputation as a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks and education. He was one of a handful of original education bloggers (willrichardson.com) and his work has appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and magazines such as Ed Leadership, District Administration, Education Week, The New York Times and English Journal. He is an outspoken advocate for change in schools and classrooms in the context of the diverse new learning opportunities that the Web and other technologies now offer.[learn_more]
Will has authored four books, most recently Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information are Everywhere (September, 2012) published by TED books and based on his most recent TEDx talk in Melbourne, Australia. In total, his books have sold over 125,000 copies worldwide.
A former public school educator of 22 years, Will is a co-founder of Modern Learner Media which is dedicated to helping parents (raisingmodernlearners.com) and policy makers develop new contexts for new conversations around education. He also co-founded Powerful Learning Practice (plpnetwork.com), a unique professional development programme that has mentored over 10,000 teachers around the world in the last six years. Over the past eight years, he has spoken to tens of thousands of educators in over a dozen countries about the merits of online learning networks for personal and professional growth.
Will lives in rural New Jersey with his wife Wendy and his children Tess and Tucker.[/learn_more]

Tristian Stobie

Dr Tristian Stobie is Director at Cambridge International Examinations [CIE]. He is responsible for the development of CIE’s education strategy for schools, supporting Cambridge teachers and learners and working in partnership with Ministries engaged in education reform initiatives with Cambridge.
Tristian’s career in education has spanned a wide range of international and educational contexts. Starting as a classroom teacher (working in New Zealand, the UK, Lesotho and Austria), he moved into school administration with roles including Vice-Principal [United World College of the Atlantic], and Middle and Secondary Principal [International school of Amsterdam, ACS Egham International School and the International School of Monaco].[learn_more]
Tristian completed a Master’s and a Doctorate degree at the University of Bath with research interests in curriculum and pedagogy. He has also worked in a number of roles for the International Baccalaureate, most recently as the Head of IB Diploma Curriculum Development from 2006 to 2009. He joined University of Cambridge International Examinations in July 2011.[/learn_more]

Hamish Boyd

A big blackboard on the kitchen wall was a key early career-shaper- as kids we were always drawing.
He completed diplomas in landscape and horticulture at Lincoln College before entering the Auckland School of Architecture. After graduation, he joined Jasmax, things were unbelievably well. The people were terrific and he was exposed to a huge range of projects.
His satisfaction comes from creating great spaces that uplift and inspire the people who use them and the communities that surround them. Good architecture enables people to flourish within spaces that are relevant to their needs and surprising in their outcomes.[learn_more]
He is particularly interested in the education, community and commercial building sectors and worked on projects including campus wide developments for Westlake Boys High School, Sancta Maria College, Whangarei Central Library and the ASB’s C:drive.
It is essential for architecture to work within a sustainable environment and be sustainable itself. Sustainability must be embedded within and intrinsic to the solution. Good decisions early on that address correct orientation relative to the sun and respond to the sites context can dramatically improve the final result.[/learn_more]

Karen Morrison

Karen Morrison comes with over 20 years of teacher training experience. She has worked as a writer, series editor and trainer for a variety of organizations and publishing companies. She regularly runs training courses in primary Science, Maths, teaching and learning resources, and teacher training and upgrading. She is also extensively published, both individually as well as collaboratively. Her most recent publications include Nelson International Primary Mathematics (Nelson Thornes UK) Level 1-6, Student Book, Workbook and Teacher’s Guide for each level, IGCSE Mathematics (Cambridge University Press) Course book, Teacher CD, Student CD, Core and Extended practice books.

Else Hamayan

Else Hamayan is an independent consultant and Director Emeritus of the Illinois Resource Center in Arlington Heights, Illinois, USA.
Dr. Hamayan was born and raised in Lebanon, where she learned English (among other languages) as a foreign language. She taught English to Arabic-speaking adolescents. She graduated with a Ph.D in psycholinguistics from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she conducted research in Canadian Immersion programs. Subsequently, she joined the Illinois Resource Center, a professional development center for teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse students. She was director of that center from 1982 through 2006, when she moved to Argentina, where she currently resides.[learn_more]
She provides professional development to teachers and administrators in the U.S., Latin America and Europe on teaching English as a second language, early childhood bilingualism, English language learners with special needs, cross-cultural learning, and dual language instruction. She has also helped administrators in programme development, particularly in dual language schools and International Schools, and has consulted with refugee programmes and state boards of education in addition to PreK-12 schools.
She is the co-author of Dual Language Instruction: A Handbook for Enriched Education (Heinle & Heinle), and the accompanying web-based training programme Dual U. More recently she co-edited English Language Learners at School: A Guide for Administrators, 2nd ed. (Caslon Publishing) and co-authored Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: A Continuum of Services, 2nd ed., and Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners: A Teacher’s Guide to Research-Based Practices (Heinemann). One of her latest publication, with Genesee and Cloud, is Dual Language Education from A to Z, published in 2013 by Heinemann.
She is currently working with Oxford University Press in creating an English immersion programme for students aged five to eleven called Oxford International English. This programme aims to support the teacher not only in the language acquisition process but also in the development of those skills required of students in the twenty-first century such as multiculturalism, critical thinking and using creativity to solve problems.[/learn_more]

Claudia Ferradas

Claudia is an experienced presenter and ELT author who has travelled the world as a teacher educator. She often works as a consultant for the British Council. She has run training sessions and participated in conferences in South America, the Caribbean, the USA, Europe and South East Asia. She holds an MA in Education and Professional Development from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in English Studies at the University of Nottingham.[learn_more]
In Argentina, she is a lecturer at the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas, Buenos Aires, and in the MA programme in Literatures in English at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza. In the UK, Claudia has been a Visiting Fellow and research supervisor at the School of Languages, Leeds Metropolitan University, and an Associate Trainer with NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education). She has also taught in the MA programme in TEFL at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
Claudia has co-chaired the Oxford Conference on the Teaching of Literature on five occasions. She has also worked as Project Manager for the Penguin Active Readers Teacher Support Programme and has been the co-ordinator of the ESSARP Centre cultural programme for several years.[/learn_more]

Raúl Molteni

Raúl Molteni is an engineer, founder and director of Molteni Consulting Group.
He has worked with public and private manufacturing and service companies, to help them implement best management, improvement and innovation
practices. Among these companies we can mention: The Coca-Cola Company, Kraft Foods, LAN Airlines, Molinos Río de la Plata and Telefónica Group. He works in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru and Chile.
Prior to founding Molteni Consulting Group he was Total Quality Excellence Coordinator in Ford Motor Argentina and Human Resources Manager for the
Renault Group.[learn_more]
He is DEC Certified Director (Board of Directors), Associate member of the International Academy for Quality, ASQ (American Society for Quality) Fellow
member and IPACE (Instituto de Profesionales Argentinos para la Calidad) member. He is ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt and serves as Lean Six
Sigma Master Black Belt for ASQ and leading companies.
He lectures at several universities and he is author of the books: “El Liderazgo del Lean Six Sigma” and “Calidad como estrategia de negocio”.
He serves as Technical Director for the Team Excellence Award Competition in Argentina.[/learn_more]

Sarah Thomas

Sarah is a Managing Editor at Collins Learning UK, with more than five years publishing experience and over three hundred books to her name. Sarah is at the heart of international and UK primary educational publishing.
Sarah’s weekly visits to schools in the UK ensure Collins Learning publishing is up to date, motivating and appropriate. Sarah has also spent time teaching English to Adults and Young Learners in South America and has a keen interest in international education, especially in this region.

Andrea Pelliccia

Andrea Pelliccia is an Educational ICT Specialist (Master in Tecnologías Aplicadas a la Educación, Instituto Universitario de Posgrado (IUP)of Spain, Fundación Carolina Scholarship Award 2012).
After graduating with honours in Computer Science at Universidad de Belgrano, she worked as a Systems and DB Analyst in different industries while she started teaching at UB, School of Information Systems.[learn_more] In 2003 she moved completely into Education, and was appointed Overall ICT Coordinator at Belgrano Day School, Buenos Aires, where she taught, managed the ICT Support Office and developed an overall institutional transformation involving the cross-curricular use of ICT at all educational levels throughout the school. In this position, she developed the school infrastructure and systems, implemented a customized teacher training programme, coordinated multidisciplinary projects involving ICT, successfully presented students to CIE examinations and other ICT tests and contests, and also represented the school in various National and International Educational Conferences and events, presenting BDS’ original ICT integration project. Early this year she was promoted to Headmistress of the Primary School at BDS, where ICT’s impact decisively the new digital & media literacies and the development of all sorts of new learning competences.[/learn_more]

Inés Stefani

Inés Stefani is a Uruguayan teacher who graduated from “Magisterio” in 1980 and since then has taught at bilingual schools. In 1989 she graduated as a Reading Recovery teacher in New Zealand. She has worked and studied for 4 years in that country. In 2002 she completed a Bachelors of Education in Teaching, at the University of Auckland in New Zealand as well as a Certificate in School Middle Management, at UNITEC, Auckland, New Zealand. From 2003 up to 2007, Inés has been doing consultancy work, in the field of literacy acquisition, nationally and internationally, especially in Brazil and Argentina. Presently, she is the Head of School at Woodlands School, in Montevideo. She has just completed her Master´s Degree through the University of Auckland.

Marcela Stewart de Tovo

MA in International School Management,Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. UK. Founder and co-Head of Holy Trinity College, Mar del Plata, Argentina.

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