HITC conference provides a space for educators to explore a passion for tech

Mar. 30, 2017

Contributed by Shaundor Chillingworth

Kamehameha Schools seeks to equip and empower educators and improve systems to support world-class education. Annual events like HITC provide a valuable learning space for educators to expand their capacity and retool to support 21st century learners.

This Friday, hundreds of educators will participate in KS Hawaiʻi’s annual Hawaiʻi Island TechEd Collaboration(HITC) conference. The theme of the conference is blending Hawaiian culture-based education and 21st century skills.

HITC is open to all teachers, administrators, tech directors, library media specialists, support staffers and others with a passion for technology in education. In addition to KS’ own kumu, HITC reaches out to schools on Hawaiʻi Island to provide this community resource to learn and grow together.

This year’s keynote presentation will be given by Emalani Case, an Assistant Professor in Hawaiian-Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu.

Case recently relocated to ʻEwa Beach, Oʻahu from Wellington, New Zealand after spending four and a half years studying and working abroad. Originally from Waimea on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, she grew up in a small town, immersed in the stories and the histories of her place. Coupled with her life-long training in hula, or Hawaiian chant and dance, she thus learned to see the world—or each landscape, seascape, and skyscape—as being “storied.” This fueled her passion for writing and studying literature, which eventually led to her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English; to her efforts to learn to speak ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and then to work with it, research it, write it, and even translate it; and most recently, to her Ph.D. work in Pacific Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where she continued to study stories, genealogies, and ancestral connections and obligations across Oceania.

Following the keynote presentation, participants have been asked to select from a variety of sessions or more detailed workshops on a topic of interest. Topics range from learning to code, exploring virtual reality tools for the classroom and the safe use of technology.

Featured presenters also include EdTechTeam technologists:

HITC 2017 will take place on Friday, Mar. 31 from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at KS Hawaiʻi. For more information on the event and scheduled sessions, visit http://blogs.ksbe.edu/hitc2017/.

See last year’s keynote presentation “Technology is Trust” below.

STRATEGIC PLAN 2020
SP2020 is a five-year strategic plan that will guide Kamehameha Schools from 2015 to 2020. The plan marks a starting point toward KS’ Vision 2040, which envisions success for all Native Hawaiian learners.

Events like HITC support both Goal 1 and Goal 2 of SP2020 which call for KS to deliver world-class, culture-based education and contribute to an improved education system for Native Hawaiian learners. It also supports Action 1 of Kamehameha’s Ten Actions for fiscal year 2016-17, advancing as a world-class KS school system.

Register

Event organizers are allowing for last minute registrations to allow as many educators to attend this conference as possible. Registrations will continue to be accepted until Thursday, Mar. 30 at 3 p.m.

Visit http://blogs.ksbe.edu/hitc2017/ to sign-up and select your sessions or for more information on the presentations.

The Kamehameha Genuis Bar (KGBHI) at KS Hawaiʻi presented a session on empowering students to help with technology in the classroom.

HITC 2016 keynote - Technology is Trust - was delivered by Kern Kelley, an EdTech Team member and educator from Maine.

Blending personal interest, technology and culture can create exciting things. Kumu Nader Shehata has students talk about some of the products they've been able to create following that format.

KS Maui elementary kumu Clark Tuitele hosts a session on how to use the Garage Band app to create music and a fun and accessible way.

Senior program manager Mark Ellis joined West Hawaiʻi regional director Kaimana Barcarse to share how technology is incorporated in the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage.

HITC would not be possible without the hard work of the planning team, represented here by Carmen Richardson, Kristi Martines, Dory Shigematsu and Ellen Cordeiro.