Google Summit goes in Barnwell

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Vauxhall Advance

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

After last year’s successful Google Summit at Barnwell School, Horizon School Division is looking forward to the sequel this weekend.

While this is truly the third southern Alberta summit, it is the second year in a row where it will be held in the Village of Barnwell, as the first iteration was located in Lethbridge.

Experience gained from last year’s summit is being poured into this year’s edition and Horizon is eager to hear the keynote speakers featured at the event.

“We are excited to host speakers from a national and international level this year. One of our keynote speakers, Kim Pollishuke, comes from York Region District in Ontario and promotes how to create confident, innovative, digital citizens. Jeff Heil is another keynote and he is a digital learning innovator for the San Diego County Office of Education, an adjunct professor of educational technology for California State University San Marcos, and a Google Certified Innovator and Education Trainer. His bio says, “His mission in life is to spread the love of technology as a tool to transform student learning across the globe.” The Google Summit schedule offers teachers “launchpad” sessions where they can roll up their sleeves and put their new learning right into lesson plans to follow in the coming weeks and months,” said Amber Darroch, associate superintendent of learner services.

The two-day event starts at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and goes until 5:15 p.m., with Saturday starting at the same time and going until 4:15 p.m.

The event keynotes and breakout sessions will showcase themes of creating engaging, relevant learning, fostering creativity, problem-solving and communication on top of other things.

With the event being in southern Alberta, they expect a fair share of educators to come from the region, but they also know people from all over will be attending.
“We are expecting just under 100 representatives from across Southern Alberta and beyond. With returning to Barnwell after such a successful event last year, we have developed a bit of a following,” continued Darroch.

Last year the event saw attendance from Calgary, Edmonton and Medicine Hat, as well as some other markets.