LEARNLIVEUAE

BY: MARK ANDERSON AND OLLY LEWIS

The last five years have seen an explosion of educators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) region taking control of their own Continuing Professional Development (CPD). From Twitter chats to educator-led events such as the ResearchEd Dubai event, organised by Dubai College, teachers have been doing it for themselves, and it has promoted a massive shift in the way that schools interact, engage and support each other.

There’s no getting away from the fierce competition between schools to attract students to the many amazing halls of learning in the UAE. The shift we have seen however towards more grass-roots CPD, led by teachers, for teachers, has brought schools that previously wouldn’t work together, together, for the betterment of all students in the region, regardless of the school they attend. This has been a fantastic thing to behold and something which the education sector should be rightly proud to have achieved, and it has been brought about by passionate educators of which the region has in aplomb.

In that vein, LearnLiveUAE, was started by a leading influencer in the region, Assistant Headteacher and GESS award-winning Olly Lewis, of The British School Abu Dhabi (BISAD), and one of the most influential educators on social media, Mark Anderson to provide a weekly live show, offering superb, free, professional learning opportunities in a wide variety of guises.

Recognised by many now as one of the essential weekly live education focussed shows in the Middle East, LearnLiveUAE features educators and school leaders in each of its shows, from schools and educational establishments from across the MENA region and beyond.

Since its inception in early 2020, Olly and Mark have welcomed more than twenty different guests to the show, with the eleven episodes in Season One, being viewed by thousands of educators from around the world.

The aim of the show has always been to provide professional learning and sharing opportunities for educators in the region, in a way that is accessible, relevant, timely and responsive to the needs of people working in the education space. Therefore, episodes can be viewed back via specific playlists

Mark Anderson

on our YouTube channel (bit.ly/ learnliveuae) and starting from Season 2 we will be simulcasting (broadcasting at the same time) to both YouTube and Twitter. To view episodes on Twitter, please tune into Mark’s Twitter account which can be found at https://twitter.com/ ICTEvangelist.

To date, LearnLiveUAE has had a wealth of superb guests from schools and school groups across the region such as Taaleem, BSAK, British School in Muscat, Victory Heights, British International School of Abu Dhabi, Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, Star Mirdif, GEMS First Point School, Manor Hall International School, Dubai College and more. We have also had representatives from companies who work closely with schools in the region too, in areas such as Safeguarding, Virtual Reality, Online Safety, Innovation and more.

From the outset, Mark and Olly aimed to create a live show which represented and served the needs of educators and leaders across the region with a laser focus onsharing:

5 Discussions that enable multidimensional approaches in classrooms, teams and schools; 5 The voices of a diverse range of educators and those working within education from across the region and beyond, sharing their experiences, successes and lessons learned; 5 From a wide variety of contexts and areas of education; 5 Professional development opportunities at your fingertips which are open, friendly, collegiate, engaging and ask questions to help drive your own learning.

An example of where LearnLiveUAE has shone as an initiative was following the announcement of the Distance Learning Evaluations. Straight away, Olly and Mark were able to use their networks to coordinate a few episodes with a specific focus on these issues to help everyone in the region facing similar challenges. From an episode exploring leading learning with Dee Saran, Deputy Head at Dubai College, to episodes exploring approaches to embedding cognitive science principles into teaching and learning with Deputy Head, Nigel Davis at BSAK and Head of Science from British School of Muscat, Matthew Clarke; our principles have guided each episode.

We are hugely buoyed by the fantastic feedback we have received across the whole of Season One. As we move into Season Two, you can expect to see more of the same in terms of authentic teacher voices, best practice and ideas that work.

To shift things up a gear or two, we have planned even more for the new academic year, with; book reviews from teachers and the impacts the books have had in their classrooms, deeper-dive interviews with authors and educational researchers, competitions with prizes for educators. We will also be attending and broadcasting LIVE from a variety of educational events across the region in 2020/21.

We are also very excited to be planning a significant, whole day, FREE online Teaching, Learning and Leadership event with some fantastic guests already confirmed. We will announce more details across Season Two, where we will reveal a speaker each week.

Olly Lewis

As with the live show, this event will be streamed live to YouTube and Periscope/Twitter with no need to sign up or pay. In keeping with the vision and values of LearnLiveUAE, access to our shows will always be free for educators. After all, that’s why we do what we do, to help others, to bring like-minded educators together, for the betterment of all students in every school.

LearnLiveUAE returned to the airwaves on 24th August, subscribe to bit. ly/learnliveuae and follow Mark @ ICTEvangelist and Olly @OLewis_ coaching, join in and take part in each episode.

Mark is a former school leader with more than twenty years of experience in the classroom, leading successful faculty departments, being a local authority lead teacher for his subject. He is responsible for some of the world’s most innovative 1:1 programmes. Mark’s mission has always been to impact positively the futures of children, which has led to him leaving the classroom to pursue that aim on a larger scale. His blog ICT Evangelist won the Education Blog of the Year award in 2015. Connect with him on Twitter @ICTEvangelist.

Olly is an educator with over ten years’ experience. In 2020 he won a GESS Award for best use of digital learning in the classroom for school wide strategy and implementation of CENTURY, he also hold a Masters in Educational Leadership along with various other post nominals such as QTS, PGCE, BSc, FCCT, #MIEExpert, #GoogleCE and #AppleTeacher. Olly is also the co-founder and co-host of #LearnLiveUAE, a weekly show dedicated to sharing best practices in education, the show can be found on YouTube here.