Cook Islands Summit

This was my hightlight of the year going to present at the first ever Raraotonga teacher Google summit. Dorothy Burt had been talking about the organisinig of the summit and asked for anyone interested in attending and presenting in the October holidays. I had said I was keen right from the start. It is a place I love to visit and thought it was a great oportunity to give back to the beautiful place by sharing my knowledge to the teachers of Rarotonga. When it finally came out and was confimed the prices where quite high being in the school holidays but I desided why not my new bathroom could wait another year. Then my husband said he did not wont to go as we had only just been over in June. So I decided to shout my daughter over being a first year teacher. This would be a good learning oportunity and a holiday at the same time. Also I would get to spend some quality time with my daughter. We stayed at the Edge water resort and there was 40 from New Zealand attending and presenting and 60 local teachers. I started off with one workshop and then got asked to do another so spent my first week of the holidays organising and preparing for these. I choose to do 2 Maths workshops one on Fractions and the other on Place Value. Being Maths I had to take over equipment and had to think about what they had avaiable on the island. Not being to sure on how good their wifi was in schools I made my workshops very hands on with activities for the teachers to explore and play. I did share some online resources and activities for the lucky schools that had acess to devices and reliable wifi. The welcoming on the first day was very special and the friendly locals made us very very welcome. I also got to see a old friend Roberta who has been over there working for 5 years. That was a very loud and lots of hugging reunion and a great way to meet all the locals. The workshops where very well recieved by the locals and we also got to attend some other workshops. The visit to the local Cultural Art center was special and Poppa Pete was a very knowledgable and respected elder. He did not hold back on his thoughts and ideas of how the country should be run. The second day we took our car out and helped set up they gave everyone that attended a prize of a set of headphones or mouse pad mats and also drew out names for other prizes. Thanks to all the sponsors. Zana(my daughter) won a drone which made her day. After more workshops till lunch time we then had a cultural afternoon we choose ukalali for the first session and got taught to play some songs and then got to dye some syrongs on the traditional carved print boards, others tried drumming and flax weaving. Then after the closing of a very special 2 days we all headed to Viamis bar for a few drinks. I am so glade I had the experience and got to share it with my daughter. We have made many new friends and got to meet partners of work collegues and got to know others on a more personal note out of the normal work. Over the next few days we swam, relaxed, walked,ate out, toured the island and swam with turtles before we headed home. It was a fantatic trip with great memories.Much better than a new bathroom.

. ">