I'm at the annual AARE conference in Hobart. Lovely to be back in Tassie. I'm here with hundreds of people who study education, teach educators, study the teaching of educators, study how educators teach, study how education is studied, study those who study education, and study what we mean by all of the above. i'm out of my comfort zone. (i know two people whom I havent seen yet.) people from universities, education depts and schools from across Australia and overseas.
there's a strong focus on schooling (yet little/nothing specific to church schools), and on preparing teachers to teach. a much lesser focus on higher education in general. very little on vocational education. virtually nothing on more 'community-based' learning eg. church.
i've been to a helpful session on research methods, and a session on educational leadership that was really about school principals for the future. there are 600 presentations over 5 days, so I'm hoping that i pick a few winners. the challenge is that there are lots of people here who know stuff that would be interesting and helpful for me, but its not really going to be in the sessions, is it?
tomorrow night I'm going to the "technology & education" special interest group dinner. i dont have an iPad... will it be all geek introverts? virtual food?
the Routledge book display has some great looking books on educational research and research in general...
i'm doing church work while I'm here too. that's the next post...