With two weeks to go, it is timely to look at how to get the most out of your uLearn experience.
Still looking for reasons to join us in Rotorua? uLearn is CORE Education’s annual professional learning conference.
Across three days of professional learning opportunities, you will connect and collaborate with others who have the interests of all learners at heart, and the drive to explore innovations and develop practical solutions to learning challenges.
But wait, there’s more! You can take part in uLearn even if you are not coming to the conference! The #notatulearn hashtag offers you the chance to follow along and experience uLearn virtually this year.
BEFORE
Plan
- Read the uLearn updates you’ve been sent.
- Familiarise yourself with the conference themes and focus questions.
- Identify what you’d like to get out of the conference.
- Take time to read the programme and pick a pathway through the breakout selection. Pre-book your breakouts to ensure a seat.
- Make sure your device is fully operational outside your place of work.
- Make sure you have all your charging cords with you, but travel as light as possible!
Connect
- View the uLearn webinar recording to get the latest information.
- Download the EventsAir conference app via the App Store or EventsAir conference app via the Google Play Store, and add your profile.
- Use the app to make connections by marking delegates and presenters you’d like to meet with, and exhibitors you’d like to visit.
- Sign up to updates from Connected Educator, and download the starter kete.
- Get organised! Join Twitter and follow the hashtag #ulearn19 and #CENZ19
- Join edspace uLearn group, introduce yourself and tell us what you’d like to get out of uLearn19.
Pack
- Wear comfy shoes – you will do a lot of walking.
- Bring your own drink bottle.
- Wear a backpack so you’re hands free.
- Make a uLearn dinner costume to fit the ‘Into the Jungle’ theme. Homemade costumes garner much admiration, and there are prizes to be won for your efforts.
- If it’s too late to do this, make a note for next time!
DURING
The good news is you can still do many things from the BEFORE section, when you arrive.
Network
Visit the CORE Education stand and meet the Connected Educator Team.
Embrace social spaces at uLearn
Ten Trends conference showcase
WHEN: 5.00pm – 6.15pm Tuesday 8 October (optional, all welcome)
WHERE: Unison 3, Energy Events Centre
Want to connect before the conference gets underway? Register via the app, or just come along and join in on the day, after you’ve picked up your lanyard and name tag. The Ten Trends Conference Showcase, brought to you by a CORE Education team, includes audience participation. So grab a drink, and get social with us.
Welcome reception
WHEN: 5.00pm-6.00pm Wednesday 9 October
WHERE: Exhibition rooms – Bay Forum and Trust Sportsdrome, Energy Events Centre
The Welcome Reception is a chance to engage with exhibitors and other delegates in the exhibition spaces, and continue the first day of your conference experience, while enjoying fine wine and canapés. The interaction continues with the Town Square fun and games.
Town Square
WHEN: 5.30pm-6.30pm Wednesday 9 October (optional, bookable)
WHERE: Exhibition rooms – Forum and Trust Sportsdrome, Energy Events Centre
The Town Square is the heart of the community where people come to meet and socialise. As an extension of the welcome reception, Town Square is an opportunity to experience the vitality and heart of the uLearn community. Gather around the Digi Smackdown stage to hear impassioned speakers share their stories, tips and resources. Join the speed geeking conversations, play the giant games and begin the uLearn19 prize challenge. Try your hand at the Interactive Digital Mural in the Grand Hallway. Take the time to get connected in edSpace so that you can continue the conversations. Talk with the exhibitors and find out what’s on offer, and plan to come back to them during the conference. Meet up with your pals, meet new people, and flow on out to dinner at your leisure.
Eat Streat
Eat Streat is a vibrant, colourful must see as one of Rotorua’s coolest hot spots in the city. At the lake end of Tutanekai Street, you can enjoy quality restaurants, cafés and bars. The covered central walkway will keep you dry and the retractable roofing gives you all all-weather al fresco dining. Take a team there on any evening except on Thursday, if you’re going to the uLearn dinner.
Participate
- Your colleagues are your best collaborators, so don’t be shy to ask about successes and failures, share your learning, and offer strategies that may apply to them.
- Take time to visit the Exhibition Hall and ask exhibitors about their wares. They are there to assist you to do your job.
- Branch out and broaden your horizons, or stay focused on your identified goals – there’s no right way to do it.
- Be brave – ask questions, offer thoughts.
- Be thoughtful and invite others to join you if they are looking lost or alone.
- Contribute your questions to back channel conversations and share ideas and provocations to social media.
- Contribute feedback to the presenters by completing the breakout evaluations as you go. Read the live keynote blogs and consider your own thoughts.
- Keep an eye on Strea.ma on the conference screens, as an easy way to track social media
- Visit the CORE Education stand just inside the door in the Forum Room. Meet the team, explore our 2019/20 professional learning offerings, and peruse resources.
- Complete the challenge and enter for your chance to win the ultimate uLearn prize – a complimentary uLearn20 ticket plus flights (within NZ) and accommodation.
Record
- Find out about our keynote presenters: Shay Wright, Dominic Liechti @domiliechti, and Sally-Ann Wiliams @sallyannw
- What do you know about them already? What do you wonder? Have you followed them on Twitter?
- Keep notes. Set up a collaborative doc for your group and add the link to the uLearn19 collaborative keynote docs. Shay Wright, Dominic Liechti and Sally-Ann Williams
- Share in notes and join in uLearn discussions in edSpace.
- Tweet as a way to include your #notatulearn friends. Share your favourite quotes and resource links.
- Remember to use the conference hashtags to be part of the hashtag story. #ulearn19, #CENZ19, #notatulearn
- Meet up with colleagues to discuss and reflect on what you’ve learnt.
Plan
Consolidate your learning, prioritise, and decide what you will action back in your learning community.
AFTER
Collate and share resources
- Think about ways to share what you have learned in your workplace, and how you can positively influence other staff.
- Presenters are asked to share their presentation slides and resources. Access the urls from the breakout sessions that you attended.
- Watch out for the keynote resources that are added to the uLearn website and to edSpace. Watch the keynote videos to revisit key messages.
Continue conversations
- Write your own blog to share your reflections.
- Join a discussion in the edSpace uLearn discussion group or start your own conversation.
Take action
- Award yourself the appropriate digital badge and identify the level you achieved on the uLearn19 digital badge rubric.
- Gather evidence of the impact of your conference experience and attach evidence to your badge as part of your digital portfolio.
- Bring others into your action plans and find ways to implement them.
And above all, plan to have some fun while you learn!
Now that you’ve read this, come along to meet the Connected Educator team at the CORE Education stand at uLearn, and share the ‘secret message’ and you will receive a treat:
Ehara mā te takitahi, engari mā te takitini, ka angitu koe!
Not as an individual, but as a collective, you will succeed!
All images copyright CORE Education, all rights reserved.
Anne Kenneally
Latest posts by Anne Kenneally (see all)
- Make the most of uLearn19 - September 25, 2019
- Getting the most out of uLearn17 - October 6, 2017
- Capturing the ‘voice’ of the learner… - December 6, 2016
