At the NAVCON2K4 conference we are going to explore the use of Blog technology as a means of increasing the impact of the conference. To this end we are developing the conference website around the Interact community software technology that also has a Blog built in.
We hope to do three things:
– introduce Blogging to those of the 1800 delegates who havenít yet encountered Blogs (they all get a Blog!)
– pull together conference keynotes, speakers, delegates, and presenters who already have Blogs before, during, and after the conference
– perhaps most importantly, we hope delegates will individually or as groups Blog their critical learning incidents from the conference and then review these in PD sessions when they get back to their schools
Through making the above possible, we are trying to increase the impact of the conference by easily enabling teachers to capture their thoughts as the conference progresses and review and reflect upon their learning individually and as groups when they return to their schools. So if you read this, are coming to the conference, and already have a Blog, then please send me your URL! Either leave it as a comment on my Blog or email stephenp@ultralab.net
Stephen Powell 
Hi Stephenguess you already know the e-Fellows’ blog at: 219.88.73.68/plog/ …
🙂 Maurice
you’re doing a fantastic job Steven – amazing.
Thanks Blair, it is always good to try new things. Yes Maurice we have the e-Fellows blogs – cheers!
Navcon2k4 is now over! Thank you everybody for making it the huge success it was.The New Zealand Ministry of Education is delighted to bring together New Zealand Lead Schools and Australian Navigator Schools (Navcon Consortium) from Victoria, to produce this excellent conference on learning and thinking by, with and through information and communication technologies. Navcon conferences are structured around a central theme, and this year’s theme was ‘learning for the future’, or – in maori – ‘whaia nga akoranga mo apopo’. Consequently, keynote presenters gave presentations which considered where we have come from in education in the last century, but also where we are headed, and where, perhaps, we should be headed.
The conference opened with a keynote on critical issues facing leaders and leadership structures in schools today, presented by internationally renowned school leadership guru, Tom Sergiovanni. The work of Sergiovanni has helped to inform the leadership principles here at GWSC, so it was an excellent opportunity to hear from the man himself. Australian keynote, Dale Spender, presented a review of Australian education, contending that we don’t have an education policy in Australia, but rather we have a financial policy: that discussion in our country when it comes to education is more concerned with where funding is directed rather than what exactly is (and should be) going on in schools. The final keynote was by Derek Wenmouth and Vince Ham, both education researchers from New Zealand. Using a series of unlikely props and allusions, they attempted to make statistics about schools fun and engaging.