IHWO launches successful Online Teachers’ Conference

IHWO held its very first Teachers’ Online Conference on Friday 25th November and it was deemed a huge success. The idea was to share plenaries, workshops and discussions in a virtual conference environment, bringing together teachers from across the network who would not normally be able to meet.

The online platform was kindly donated by Oxford University Press. It proved simple to use, technophobe-friendly and allowed anyone with a headset and microphone to take part. A varied programme was put together with sessions from high profile speakers Jeremy Harmer and Simon Greenall, as well as IHWO coordinators and expert IH teachers. Most of the 17 sessions were in English, but there were also workshops in Russian and Spanish.

The timetable was carefully constructed to run from 8am until 10pm GMT to allow people from all timezones to take part and the response from teachers was fantastic. We estimate that 150 teachers attended and that representatives from each of the 50 IH countries logged in at some point throughout the day. Some peak-time sessions had over 70 people participating at any one time which was an unprecedented response!

IHWO Chief Operating Officer, Lucy Horsefield, said of the conference: “I couldn’t be happier with the success of our very first online conference for IH teachers. It was a truly a global event and an absolute delight to take part in. This was really a very proud moment in IH history and Neil McMahon, Shaun Wilden, and all of our speakers and moderators, did a phenomenal job.“

The IHWO team look forward to holding more online conferences in 2012 and hope to see you all there.