It is very exciting to see the current interest in using ICT in the classroom in South Africa. I thought I would make a list of the upcoming conferences that I know about which teachers could investigate. They are listed below in the order of their dates. .

1. Google in Education Summit, Johannesburg, July

This of course is the not-to-be missed summit that is being presented by the EdTEchTeam and hosted by SchoolNet SA and Dainfern College at Dainfern College in Johannesburg on 3rd and 4th July with a pre-conference with separate pricing taking place the day before on July 2nd.  Take a look at the incredible programme on offer on the Conference website – five international presenters and a Google employee as well as local presenters who are using Google in their classrooms. Google is a company on the move with free education products that are growing in number daily. Everything can be stored easily in the cloud via Google Drive.  The great thing about the conference is that currently there is a special on offer where you can still register for the Early Bird rate. All you do is go to Registration on the website and look for Promo code in red down the right hand side. Click on it and enter the word ‘friend’. This will enable you te still receive the early bird pricing.

2.  Edtech Summit, five locations, August 2-13

Edunova, LEAP Schools and K12 Productions Global are putting together their second conference which they have called the EdTech Summit. Building on the collaborative learning experience of EdTech Summit South Africa 2013, this year in August 2014 they are expanding to 5 locations in order to bring more quality professional development opportunities to educators across South Africa. They will produce one full day of multi-track workshops in each location. EdTech Summit 2014 will be free and on a first-come, first-served registration basis until capacity is full. Please visit their website for more information http://www.edtechsummitsouthafrica.com/

3. Inspired Teachers Conference in Cape Town, August 6

The Inspired Teachers Conference was launched by QualityLife Company in March 2012 in a drive to share leadership lessons and inspiration with SA’s teaching community. They were overwhelmed with the response they received from teachers around the country. 300 teachers attended and many more were turned away because the room was filled to capacity.After 3 years of running #InspiredTeachers in JHB (and once in Limpopo) they’re taking this conference to Cape Town on August 6 this year for the first time. You can find out more at http://inspiredteachers.co.za/

4. TeachConference, September, Grahamstown

The TEACH! Conference 2014 will take place from 19-21 September in Grahamstown at Eden Grove, Rhodes University.  They have called their conference “Moving from Good to Great” and you can see the programme at http://goo.gl/Nxn29I. One of the things I noticed about tis conference was that one of the main speakers is Rushton Hurley from Next Vista for Learning in the USA. Rushton was a favourite presenter of many at the Google Summit at Parklands College last year in September. 

5. e-Schools Network Conference, Cape Town, October

e-Schools’ Network will be holding its 9th national teacher conference on October 7th , 8th and 9th 2014 at Wynberg Girls High School, Aliwal Rd Wynberg, Cape Town. This conference is called ‘ Innovate 2014, ICT Conference for Teachers: Learning and Teaching in connected world.’ This conference will cover a wide range of topics over a 3 day period during the school holidays – focusing on mobile technologies and integrating ICTs in the classroom to enrich the lives of both teacher and learner. They are currently calling for presenters.  Find out more at http://www.conf2014.school.za/

Attending a conference is a great way of finding out more about using ICT in the classroom and networking with other like-minded educators. Which conference will you choose?