Some Reflections on IEEC2010
This was the first year I’ve attended the International Enterprise Educators Conference (IEEC) so I wasn’t really sure what to expect; all I knew was that it would have more of a practitioner focus than ISBE, that I would see quite a few friends there and that for some crazy reason I had decided to present a workshop on Simulation Gaming with my colleague Richard Tunstall from Glamorgan.
As a newbie I found the conference most enjoyable; a great opportunity to meet old friends, network with new ones and engage in a shared enterprise dialogue that I hope will help shape the development of my field, through the Cardiff Concordat. I’ve got a couple of general points to make about the conference at the end of this blog but first I’ve picked out my top 3 speakers (based on those sessions I attended) and the reasons for these choices (I’m a bloke…I like top 3′s):
No 3. – David Rae… Yes I know he’s my Prof. So I am a bit biased but his session on new era entrepreneurship and achieving sustainability in enterprise education was very interesting and left me with the impression that while most colleagues are facing the same challenges we don’t talk enough at an operational level to develop / share solutions to the challenges he highlighted.
No 2. – Simon Brooke’s session on ARG’s and entrepreneurship education was just fantastic; I think what Simon is doing is really interesting and I hope to look at some ways I can start to combine elements of ARG’s more deeply into my own practice, if you’re not watching his work you should be!
No 1. – Colin Jones, Colin’s keynote was a subtle yet substantial call for more education in enterprise education; I think his challenge to us all to become great educators grounded in a consistent philosophy we are able to communicate is one we should embrace so that we can compete against the best people from other disciplines and raise the profile of our own.
In fact I think that for myself Colin’s call really encapsulated a key concern I took from the conference; you see while it was nice to see some new faces, there still don’t seem to be that many young educators coming into the discipline working in the curricula (correct me if I am wrong here…please) not in extra curricula provision.
I was about the youngest member of staff at the conference (by around 3 years) and one of the few out of that group whose main role wasn’t extra curricula… now I know I’m quite young and a bit of a freaky exception but still, it would be nice to see more new, young faces who have a passion for teaching and learning coming into the profession and I hope that new qualifications such as the one proposed by WAG will help to change this and that I can have a role in shaping this and encouraging more younger educators to take up the batton!
That aside for a second, IEEC is a great expression of our diverse field and this year was a brilliant conference with memories that I will treasure and apply… and not just those related to losing my wallet and how not to in future… I would encourage any enterprise educator to go along and get involved to help keep enterprise at the fore front of education.
Peace
Matt
