Microsoft E2 Education Exchange

It was an honour to have been chosen to represent Hillcrest and be one of four Australian educators at the Microsoft E2 Education Exchange conference in Canada. The conference held at the Fairmount Royal York in Toronto was inspiring with approximately 240 educators from all over the world coming together to ‘Make What’s Next?’ During the conference we met amazing guest speakers such as one of the founders of the we.org movement, Craig Kielburger who is challenging individuals to make an impact in the world and we even created a finger sensor to play ‘paper, scissors, rock’ against the computer.

One of the highlights from this conference was working with a small group of educators on a pitch to Microsoft for a new product. My amazing group was made up of teachers from the United States of America, Canada and Costa Rica and pitched a new Skype product that would delocalise the world for students. For our concept, we were selected as the 2nd Runner Up and were recognised at an awards night. Since the conference, I have Skyped one of my fellow educators class in Maryland who wanted to know more about life in Australia.

‘Do you have Vegemite for lunch?’ was the title of the learning activity that I presented at the ‘Learning Marketplace’ during the conference. Before the conference, students in 5KM collaborated with students from New Zealand and Denmark to find out what school life is like in different countries and present the information they found using a Sway. Other educators appreciated the learning the students had done, giving us amazing shout outs on twitter and eagerly looked forward to trying the Vegemite that I took to share.

While over in North America, I also had the privilege of visiting, The Kings Academy school in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr Brian Burrage generously took the time to take me on a tour of this amazing school. Their heart for God was evident in the students and teachers that I met.

Peta Jorgensen
JLC Digital Technology Coordinator