AGIS Conference 2024 Potsdam

A self-confessed PowerPoint addict invites you to explore and consider how we present information
to learners; how to do it better, how to do it differently and (whisper it) how to do it less. We’ll briefly explore how a 30+ year old form of business software and its imitators came to dominate so many of our classrooms, share our experiences and consider some alternative approaches with a sense of humour and open minds.

Recycling properly is a clear and visual signal to students and families that we care about the planet and are serious about our responsibilities. However, doing it properly and diligently can be a challenge. SOLUTION: get students involved! A student-led scheme teaches stewardship, streamlines the Hausmeister's workload, and improves waste management across the school. Come see one success story. Could it work at your school?

Over 5 years into the GDPR and through the course of a pandemic, GDPR compliance programs in German international schools have matured, and yet adhering to the principles of the GDPR still remains a daily challenge for most schools given an ever-changing landscape of technical possibilities in the EdTech world (e.g. AI), vendors, and EU/German regulations and court decisions.
This session is designed to share best practises in privacy compliance in an English speaking international school in Germany, looking both at the everyday core components of a compliance program as well as how schools can embrace the principle of Privacy by Design in their own values and practises to ensure that our right to data privacy does not have to quash innovation. The session will be in an open forum where participants are invited to share their knowledge, experiences and best practises at their schools.

In our multimodal world visuals and moving images have become an increasingly popular means of communication to express ideas and convey emotions. It is our task as teachers to support our students in building a sound visual literacy that enables them to evaluate images and make meaning of them.

Images are a wonderful tool to inspire students to write not only because they activate prior knowledge but nurture students’ imagination to create their own stories. We will be looking at paintings, photos, films, and wordless books and find out how decoding and analysing their visuals work best. The three following questions will steer our workshop: How am I going to embed visuals meaningfully in my classroom? How can my students be supported in making meaning of images by not only asking them to describe what they see? And how can I sparkle their imagination in order to support them grow as independent writers by producing narratives, biographies, as well as non-fiction texts? “Stepping into the picture and going on an inquisitive journey” as well as “leading a dialogue with the characters depicted in the visuals” are only but a few strategies to mention that support students in analysing pictures.

This is a chance for the AGIS Sustainable School Working Group, and any other like-minded educators, to come together and discuss sustainability school projects during this one-hour round table session. What projects are taking place at your school? How are students involved? How are other community members involved? Has sustainability become a part of any decision-making when it comes to: purchasing, travel, facilities or other areas outside of the educational side?

This session will give us the opportunity to share ideas and problems we have encountered and give us new ideas on how we can tackle problems to make our schools more sustainable.