Singapore Reflections 2014

In 2014 I had the opportunity to attend the ICTLT Conference which took place in Singapore. it was the first time that I'd had the opportunity to visit the city, although I had done so briefly as a 9 year old in 2982. The context for the 2014 visit was to attend the conference. This had been provided by the Auroa Primary School BOT as Professional Development. The part consisted of three other Principals from local schools, who were part of a PLG group. The conference was an interesting experience. Having attending numerous ULEARN Conferences in New Zealand I assumed that the conference would be run along similar lines and associated matters such as social media would run similar. I started using the conference hashtag from New Zealand as we began the process of departing and was surprised that there seemed to be minimal tweets prior to the conference. During the conference the tweeting was minimal. There was a break out or workshop that was devoted to Tweeting and unfortunately I missed it. The best part of the entire experience was being able to attend a visit to a local school prior to the conference. We visited the Geyling Methodist School first and saw it in operation. As Singapore was first in the world in the teaching state as ranked by the PISA test I was interested in observing in the classroom and seeing how it operated. The school was extremely encouraging and welcoming.

The experience was something that I enjoyed immensely from a practical point of view but also from an understanding of pedagogy.   However I was realistic that visiting Singapore as part of a conference was a opportunity that would only come once.    This year I applied through the Asia New Zealand Foundation and was thrilled to say that I was accepted to travel to Singapore later this year for a trip to strengthen relations and investigate the Singapore Education system.