Get to know our partners and co-organizers on journey of introducing ICT solutions to education in Western Balkans region. In parallel with our two-day conference, we also organised a fair where over 30 ICT companies and educational institutions presented the latest technological solutions in education that they developed or introduced to the market. The participants were able to visit their stands, try out interactive classroom solutions, find out how to use the internet for high quality teaching and see a micro:bit devices for coding. 

Fair exhibitors:

Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications

The Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia is the ministry in the Government of Serbia which is in charge of trade, tourism and telecommunications, economic relations with the foreign countries and the area of informing the society.

Natalia Kucirkova

The use of touchscreens with pre-schoolers

Based on international evidence, Natalia has provided a comprehensive and easily accessible summary of the key benefits and limitations of using touchscreens with children aged two to eight years. Attention was paid to key novel affordances of tablets and smartphones for early education and effective pedagogies necessary for innovative practice.

Natalia Kucirkova is a lecturer at University College of London, UK.  Her research concerns innovative ways of supporting digital literacy and children’s use of digital technologies. She is the founding convenor of the Children’s Digital Books and Literacy Apps Special Interest Group of the United Kingdom Literacy Association. 

Neil Morris

Institutional use and benefits of digital technologies 

Discussion of successful rollout of a wide range of digital technologies to support student education at Leeds, from a strategic and operational perspective, focussing on the impact on learning and learners; examples has included deployment of Europe’s largest automated lecture capture system, delivery of MOOCs to over 500,000 participants, use of mobile apps for live classroom polling etc.

Neil is Chair of Educational Technology, Innovation and Change in the School of Education and the Director of Digital Learning at the University of Leeds. He is a UK National Teaching Fellow, and has won a number of national awards for teaching excellence. He has a research background in neuroscience and current research interests in educational technology, online learning and blended learning. Neil is co-lead educator for the Blended Learning Essentials MOOC, which has attracted over 25,000 participants. 

Neil Rickus

What to do when they’ve had too much Scratch?

Scratch is successfully being used in primary schools worldwide to introduce children to programming. However, pupils can be become disengaged if the same programming environment is repeatedly used. During this session, we discussed a range of hardware and software to enhance pupils’ programs within in Scratch, in addition to alternatives to Scratch.

Neil is a Senior Lecturer in Computing Education at the University of Hertfordshire. He is also the Computing tutor on the Primary PGCE courses for both Brunel University and the University of Leeds. He has successfully prepared hundreds of trainee teachers for life in schools and delivered a diverse range of sessions.

Oracle

Gold partner

The Oracle Academy helps more than 1.9 million students gain industry-relevant skills. Few subjects will open as many doors for students today as computer science (CS) and engineering. To help educators awaken and deepen students’ interest in these fields of study, the Oracle Academy makes available CS education resources that are up-to-date, industry-relevant, and engaging.

Philip Bagge

Programming: passing trend or vital curriculum component

Discover why thinking skills are at the heart of coding and why exposing students to failure, ambiguity and complexity are some of the best things you can do for them. Phil took you on a journey to examine the anatomy of a programming project, the hurdles pupils overcome, lessons learnt and thinking skills gained.

20 Computing science lessons in 30 minutes

Phil shared 20 exciting computing science lessons which use computational thinking and doing. This wild breakneck ride certainly left you wondering why you haven’t started teaching computing science before.

Phil works for Hampshire County Council as a Computing Inspector/Advisor and Master teacher teaching for two days a week. He shares his learning journey on code-it.co.uk. He was involved in the drafting stages with writing the Computing National Curriculum in England.

Rachel Maxwell

Lecture Capture – is the customer always right?

Balancing a request from students for lecture capture with an institutional redesign agenda that values active, blended and personalised learning for our students on a new campus with no lecture theatres. 

Getting to ABLE: an institutional approach to active blended learning

At the University of Northampton, we are moving to a position where ‘active blended learning’ is the new normal. This keynote has considered the challenges and opportunities for us as we seek to develop Active Blended Learners and Educators.

Rachel is Head of Learning and Teaching Development in the Institute of Learning and Teaching at the University of Northampton, in the UK. Her role includes leading institutional projects to develop policy and practice that drive the University towards its strategic goals.

Richard Gerver

Richard Gerver | KEYNOTE SPEAKER

BIOGRAPHY

Richard is one of the most celebrated speakers in the world. His insights into change, leadership and education are unique thanks to his own extraordinary journey, which has seen him go from struggling actor, copywriter and estate agent, to becoming an award winning teacher and school principal, whose ground breaking work in education was celebrated by the British National Teaching awards and UNESCO amongst others.

PRESENTATION

Tomorrow Belongs to those who Prepare for it!

As we look to develop an education system that prepares our students for the complexity of their future, Richard will explore what advances in technology and the workplace will mean for our schools, our pupils and ourselves as teachers. He will share some of his unique insights into teaching, learning and the challenges that change will bring us all.

 

Simon Cross

Learning from Exam Revision

This presentation will draw on learning design and student experience of assessment research to present a model for thinking about revision and discussion of key issues.

Simon is a lecturer at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University UK. His work is focused on several areas including assessment and badges, learning design, issues associated with adaptive and visualised learning, and open online learning. He is currently involved in several projects related to the OU's institutional Assessment Programme.

Cisco

Cisco

SILVER PARTNER

Cisco is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. The concept of solutions being driven to address specific customer challenges has been with Cisco since its inception. A couple that was working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their offices located in different buildings but were unable to due to technological shortcomings. A technology had to be invented to deal with disparate local area protocols; and as a result - the multi-protocol router was born.