Hosted at the Microsoft Auckland offices, the Mission statement, translated into Te Reo Māori, was present across all activities
I’ve had the privilege of spending the weekend in Auckland with some amazing educators from across New Zealand, with guests flying in from Australia and the USA as well.
Anne Taylor, Teacher Engagement Manager for Microsoft NZ, kicked off the Hui on Saturday morning
MIE Experts are part of the Microsoft Innovative Educator program who have consistently demonstrated skills in the Microsoft Education tool sets and share their knowledge, skills and experiences with other educators. This two day event was organised by MIE Fellows – a handful of teachers who have demonstrated exceptional skill and commitment over an extended period of time. The Fellows, made up of Nikkie Laing, Morgan McKeen, Rachel Chisnall and Steve Martin helped to create the event and promoted it on the following website:
Following the successful formula of similar events, the Hui kicked off with keynotes both mornings, before breakout sessions led by the MIE-E’s that delegates could choose to attend. On the Saturday afternoon the Immersion Sessions were thrown open to any educator that wished to attend, not just MIE-E teachers. I was invited to present on OneNote and did so with the blurb here.
With an audience of tech-savvy teachers a Twitter hashtag was mandatory and you can see some of these tweets on the following hashtag: #NZMIEEHUI18. A small sample of these tweets are embedded further down this blog post.
Sunday afternoon saw the educators working on a project in small groups spread around the Microsoft office that required applied computational thinking skills to come up with a solution:
Over the course of the weekend I spoke with many of the educators present and they shared their enthusiasm on being able to come together and be inspired, challenged and encouraged by each other and develop a real sense of community.
They are an incredibly talented group of individuals, passionate about educating the future generations and it was a privilege to be a part of the weekend.
Auckland turned on some pretty wet and wild weather across the weekend, but fittingly, a rainbow emerged over the Auckland Sky Tower just as the event was concluding:
