WISE Summit Doha, Qatar

I have recently confirmed that in mid November I will be travelling to Doha, Qatar to be part of the World Innovations Summit for Education, hosted by Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.

According to the conference information the,

WISE Forum is a “by invitation only” event that will bring together 1,000 leading education figures from all disciplines, levels, supports and media coming from more than 50 countries and representing the 5 continents.

Earlier this year I was invited to an event in London by the organisers but was unable to attend. So I was thrilled to receive one of only a thousand invites for the summit. I would like to think that I will attend the conference as one of the representatives for UK education and will have the opportunity to meet with some equally passionate people from around the world.

As I understand it the invite was as a result of someone reading my blog and I suppose it is a small reward for me and this space and the time and effort I have put in over the last 3 years.

I was sceptical whether I would be able to have the time away from school, but understood that you don’t get many opportunities like this either. With the support of my family and headteacher I have decided to go.

I have signed up for a range of interesting workshops and breakout sessions across the three days.

• Day 1 – Education and Community Development / Technology and E-learning.
• Day 2 – Globalisation of Education: Preparing Students for a Global Economy and Society / Increasing Access Through Technology.
• Day 3 – Tomorrow’s Education / Innovation and New Pedagogical Trends.

I think that I will enjoy many of these and feel that with my experiences I would also be able to contribute substantially to the discussions that take place.

It has been mentioned that Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, is attending. If I get the chance to talk with him I will be sure to explain how transformational Twitter has become for teacher’s professional development across the world. Saying that, let’s hope the whole conference gets that already. If they don’t you can guess who will be banging that particular drum.