Dear mEd
These questions were featured in the mEducation Alliance 10th Anniversary Event and Award Show. The host, Alexis Bonnell (Senior Business Executive and the Emerging Technology Evangelist for Public Sector at Google and Governing Board Member), asked Anthony Bloome, Founder and Executive Director of the mEducation Alliance, these questions during a portion of the program. To continue the anniversary celebration and promote the Alliance’s work over the years, they are re-featured here.
Alexis: The Alliance has been around for 10 years, but why did it just host its first award show?
Anthony: It’s long overdue that we have a tribute to so many organizations working day-in and day-out to profoundly impact the lives of learners. There can’t be enough of these recognition awards throughout the year. Additionally, the impact of COVID-19 this and last year has really highlighted the importance of appropriate and quality EdTech solutions to support learners. We wanted to celebrate in some way the amazing work of so many those individuals working hard to reach learners wherever they are.
Alexis: As you are the founder of the mEducation Alliance, what was your thinking establishing it in 2010?
Anthony: In 2009, I joined USAID as their senior education technology specialist. Before that I worked for about 14 years at Peace Corps and World Bank as a distance education specialist. With these three institutional experiences and knowing that there were other individuals that played similar roles of their own institutions, I thought we should have our own convening space as a community to share experiences with each other. Apparently, this was attractive to a lot of other individuals and organizations as well.
Alexis: Based on the answer to the last question, was that what led to your first Symposium in 2010?
Anthony: That’s right — and even though the Alliance was more than just an annual event, the Symposium was always our highlight activity of the year. In our first Symposia, we had around 150 attendees and 25 or so presentations. The one we held last year virtually, Play Every Day, we had over 700 registrants, 25 countries represented, and close to 100 presentations.
Alexis: Do you have any your own stand-out memories of the first Symposium?
Anthony: Sure! One memory in particular. Over the years, we’ve received lots of compliments about how participatory our events are for knowledge sharing and networking. I remember at the first event, an attendee came up to me and said how great it was that we had left a whole hour for unscheduled networking during the middle of the event. He said most organizers pack their agenda so full there’s not enough time to network. What he – and as organizers we didn’t realize until he mentioned this, was that we had left that hour there by mistake in the agenda! We had printed the agenda wrong and somehow never caught this. Clearly, we were still learning how to organize an event, but apparently it ended up working out great for attendees. Since then, we’ve always made sure to provide plenty of planned networking space and fun participation activities.
Alexis: Did you have any particular favorite opening sessions?
Anthony: Yeah, it’s so great how willing our attendees have been to throw themselves into our zany ideas for opening network activities. In 2014, when we hosted our 4th Symposium at OAS’ beautiful classic building, we had attendees grouped at tables and working together to survive on an island with the only thing they had was a dead computer and its peripherals. I remember this was a room full of EdTech geeks so the island dwellers at one of the tables described how they were able to get the dead computer to work and with the items they chose to build a raft to sail to trade coconuts with the other desert islands of participants. That was hilarious!
Alexis: There have been many presentations at your annual Symposia, but were there any particular ones that stood out?
Anthony: We’ve been so fortunate to have presenters from so many countries and organizations attend our events and present on a range of ed tech innovations that range from low-to higher tech. One low-tech presentation I remember was Parmod, a program officer, from one of the departments of a school of education in India. Parmod’s innovation was encasing a mobile phone inside of a wooden box with mirrors and magnifiers which enabled the screen to be easier seen by a group of students at a time. At the other end of the spectrum, our 2019 Symposia theme was focused on digital literacy and we had many public and private sector presenters speaking about a range of digital literacy interventions from what you can do to teach computers if you don’t have any to more sophisticated software products.
