I am in Cape Town, South Africa this week for the 6th annual Worldwide Innovative Education Forum (IEF) to celebrate and learn from hundreds of school leaders who use technology creatively and effectively in their curriculum. This year, we had 200,000 participants around the world compete in regional events, and now just 125 teachers are competing this week.

I had the opportunity to attend the European regional event in Berlin back in April...see my earlier blog post here. I also attended the Latin America regional event in Panama at the end of August and wanted to share my experiences there.

At the IEF event in Panama, I was very impressed with the teachers…they have a lot of pride for their profession and the ways they are making impact, but they also are not hesitant to recognize that they're behind in some areas and trying to catch up. Panama is an interesting place because of the economic prosperity, and the business opportunities around the canal, the tolls and the port to create positive scenarios. So, their view on education is a little bit different. There's a division of the Smithsonian that's focused and based in Panama and focused on the implications on forestation and the environment.  They're doing work on coral life in the oceans, as well as thinking about the implications on the environment. 

One of the big priorities of President Ricardo Martinelli is to make sure the old part of Panama is restored and preserved to its historic value.  The country had a good infrastructure when the U.S. occupation existed, and they kind of let it run down, and now they are building it back up…and they are on a trajectory that reflects more of affluence. ..Panama looks kind of like Miami now.

From an education perspective, Panama is trying to get devices in the hands of students and teachers.  The Minister of Education is Lucy Molinar…she's a former journalist and she was picked by the President specifically, because he wanted to bring outsiders into his cabinet to bring in different perspectives…and she has been very pragmatic about what’s needs to happen before they buy PCs. The government is looking to buy a million PCs for the students of Panama, but Molinar insists that they’ve got to get teachers trained first.

Through our Partners in Learning program, we’ve committed to train 40,000 teachers in Panama.  In August, we put 273 teachers through intense training on how to use technology in the classroom, how do they keep kids safe online, how do they find and build lesson plans, etc. Now they're going out to train the rest of the population of teachers in Panama.

I was impressed by the teachers’ enthusiasm.  In many ways, Latin America has been one of the leading regions to try to address technology access, and the early phases of that look very much like Portugal, which is buying computers for students in bold strokes from the government.  And while good, we have quickly seen that they're thinking much more about the broader foundational changes…making sure teachers are prepared, working through training and curriculum, and using data more aggressively.  And I saw this reflected in the teacher projects that were submitted…a much more holistic thinking around the need for preparedness, connection to employability, and the holistic framing of the broader context for technology's use.