It’s a new year and I’m doing new things! Along with continuing with ongoing commitments, I’ve added a few things.

Learning 2.012 Conference – Keynote & Tech Team

I was asked to speak at the Learning 2.012 conference held at WAB from October 11 to October 13 (my birthday!). I gave a 5-minute keynote on what 21st century learning looks like in China at the conference opening, which had an audience of 500 plus those watching the live stream online.

In addition to delivering the inspirational talk, I handled the live video broadcast of the event and tech support as a member of the Geek Force team onsite throughout the conference.

Apple iTunes U Project

A subset of Geek Force members, myself included, became involved in a joint Apple-Beijing international school “Mac 101” project, aimed at delivering tutorials on using Macs in education publicly online via iTunes U. This is a one-of-a-kind project not seen anywhere else in the world. We had our first meeting at the Apple Executive Briefing Center Beijing together with students from the other schools involved, BCIS, DCB, and RDFZ, in mid-September.

Read more on the Lianxi by clicking here.

Golf

Last year I had planned to finally dust off my clubs and get back into golf, but other things got in the way. This year, I’ve joined the golf club and am (slowly but surely) getting back in the routine. We meet once a week to play at the Beijing Riviera driving range and I also try to get in some practice every week at the driving range nearby my house.

WAB Website Review Committee

I was presented with and gladly accepted an opportunity to join a school committee in charge of reviewing WAB community websites as a student representative. The first meeting took place in early September, where we exchanged views and suggestions; the next meeting is slated for November.

Updates on Continuing Projects

F1 in Schools: In light of recent events, we have postponed our participation in the World Finals to 2013. This will give us some more time to properly test and perfect everything.

Broadcasting: I continue to lead the broadcasting initiative from the student-side at WAB. Thus far, we’ve streamed the Learning 2.012 conference, WABX to the Max, the community picnic, and more. As the other ‘original’ producer/leader of broadcasting has graduated, essentially leaving myself left as the student ‘guru’, we are also spearheading an initiative to involve more students from across the school in broadcasting. Both a new broadcasting trainee team and a commentating team that will be trained in basic operations have been formed.

Computer science club: Due to overlaps in membership and interests, I arranged for the Computer Science Club to be dissolved and absorbed into the Geek Force from this year. (Sorry, Jeffrey.)