Does location limit learning?

Here are the slides from my talk at the Tairawhiti TexhExpo - I had originally planned to talk about 'Coaches-eye', an app that allows you to easily film, analyse and improve any physical performance - but I modified it for a wider audience and made it specific for students in Gisborne.  I tried to avoid 'death by powerpoint' and made the slides as visually stimulating as possible and used the pictures to illustrate the point I was trying to make.

The talk started off establishing that Gisborne (although one of the most amazing locations I have ever lived and worked in,) is geographically challenged, and then looked into what learning was and the theory behind how we learn, looking at Bandura and Pavlov as examples of educational psychology.  I explored what learning can now look like with student being able to connect to anyone at anytime
and anywhere - and how coaches eye was a great example of taking your skill to the next level by interacting with thousands of other athletes from around the world.

I then opened the talk up to people who may not have an interest in sport and looked into Howard Gardener's theory of multiple intelligence's and how everyone is a unique blend of the different aspects.  I urged the student to recognise that teaching yourself something is a skill in itself, and there are many ways to connect and learn in a positive way on the web - no matter where you are, or when it is.  I spoke about the ability of today's students being able to free themselves from teacher control and point their learning in a direction that they are passionate in and spoke about the concept of flow - and being completely engaged in a feeling of 'energised focus'.  I was really trying to emphasise the fact that location should never limit learning, and there are many tools to help us learn on the web.

I finished with a shot of a nebular in Orion's belt - using the image as a metaphor for the concept of finding their passion - it may be a long way away (800 years travel!) - but you can still see it, here in a building in Gisborne, on the east coast of New Zealand - and the 'thing' that will really drive you to be engaged and become a better person may be a long way away but you can still appreciate it and participate in it from where we are right now - you just have to discover it.  I closed the talk with a quote from Mark Twain "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."