Brisbane, Australia

To quote the Dalai Lama, “You won’t understand the unabashed power of a community until you are part of one”.

Anyone who attended Echo360’s Active Learning conference in Melbourne last year would have experienced one of those communities first hand. From the buzz and happy chatter of people re-connecting as old friends do, to the laughter and celebration at the annual dinner with friends just made, this is a conference that feels as comfortable as old slippers. While there was a lot to love about the conference, here are a few of my highlights.

Leah Chandler’s comfortable partnership with Echo360’s Phill Blenkiron led to a presentation full of helpful honesty with Echo360 at UTAS. Her straight talking feedback for our US based development team was presented with the sense of comfort and ease that comes from being among people you know you can be honest with and feel their full support. She sold me on bringing back the love patch!

Martin Hill, a clearly well known conference alumna going back to 2006, created a sense of anticipation as he prepared to present his impressive use of capture technology at Curtin University. For 9 presentations Martin has wowed fellow attendees with demonstrations of what is possible. I hope he found an educational purpose for the drone camera!

There were some new faces last year too. Colin Montpetit’s energetic presentation demonstrating what it’s like to be a student in his class using Echo360 gave us all a small window into the power of a class where students’ learning is truly the focus. Monash College presented not only the data from their pilot year, they also brought along Andrew Phillips who has been piloting the platform with his students. Andrew demonstrated how using the engagement tools brings his students back into the learning moment if they have somehow drifted to their Facebook and Alibaba shopping accounts. It was this engagement that saw a 10% increase in student’s pass rates.

I’m sure I was not alone in being impressed with the amount of planning and implementation of student and instructor support that was evident during Griffith University’s presentation and we’re all waiting to see how UNSW takes the world by storm with their 2025 plan that includes student success through Echo360.

It was clear to me that one of the highlights every year for those who attend the Active Learning conference is the presentation by the development teams behind the Echo360 platform; Bill’s upcoming product roadmap, Bradley’s report on the success and challenges of technology development as well as some well received coding tips from Zig.

While I got the graveyard shift – last presentation of the conference – the community rose to the occasion and played along with me as I demonstrated why we need to think about our team’s preferences for learning and participating as we bring about change and implement new learning. That can only happen in a room where the ‘newbie’ is welcomed by a group with a high level of comfort and trust.

I can’t wait to see what happens this year and if Jocasta Williams, the loved and trusted person behind these feelings of community, will finally lose her voice…

See some of the highlights and join us at the conference in November.