Dr. Matt Harris, FETC 2018 presenter and moderator, is the Deputy Head of School for Learning Technology at the British School Jakarta. He has worked with schools and Ministries of Education in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, Australia, and Asia. He has also worked directly with over 25 international education organizations including the International Baccalaureate, accrediting agencies, and regional organizations.
Dr. Harris has a global perspective on learning and sees an interconnectedness between technology in the classroom, school leadership, and the business community. Technology is often closely associated with a specific teacher and tends to depart when an educator chooses to exit their position. The result is a void left for a school to fill and a frequent disruption in creating any long-lasting curriculum plan. As Dr. Harris notes, the success of any program (academic, technological, etc.) completely depends on the value and the understanding of the long-term impact the leadership puts on it. He asks, “How do you create something that has a sustainable impact and lasts beyond the individual instructor, becoming part of a school’s DNA?”
His answer was to found the Blueprint For Technology and Education, which hopes to bridge that gap and shape a common language and understanding between school leadership and tech businesses. The blueprint seeks to develop a long-term relationship and understanding between businesses and schools, creating a blanket roadmap of a school’s needs and wants and providing ed tech vendors a local context.
Dr. Harris is moderating six different panels made up of over 18 international education experts at the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) in Orlando, Florida in January 2018. The panels, with experts on school models and curriculum from all over the world, will be discussing how technology affects the more than 9000 international schools across the globe. Dr. Harris invites anyone interested to sit in on and contribute to the discussions at FETC.
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Matt Harris will mpderate seven sessions including “What IT Approaches Help Schools Control Costs and Maintain Growth?” and “Do We Even Have the Right Data?“. For more information on his sessions, visit the FETC website here.
Listen the full interview here: huffingtonpost.com
