The 18th annual International Conference for Media in Education (ICoME20) hosted by Konan University in Kobe Japan was moved online due to the pandemic. This provided the opportunity for some of our student researchers to take part via video conference, although the difference in time zones was challenging, involving some late nights/early morning participation on the part of the WildCARDEs.
The following all had their proposals accepted for round-table sessions, where they presented their ideas and then got feedback and questions from the other participants in their session. This led to a range of views and feedback, specifically from an Asian perspective, that might not otherwise have normally been facilitated.
Ana Paula Camargo, Alex Corr, Charlotte Dawson, Nathalie Lossec and Nicholas Millar all presented round-table sessions. Mark Curcher presented a paper in the concurrent sessions.
We are thrilled and delighted that Ana Paula Camargo was awarded a Young Scholar Award for her presentation and said “My presentation at ICoME20 was about issues regarding digitalization in the development of critical thinking skills, in the context of low-income students. It was a great opportunity to share my research project that will be applied in the Brazilian educational context, with other masters’ students from different backgrounds. I was double grateful: for this rich experience and for being awarded among several excellent presentations.”
The critical applied framework used by CARDE provided an alternative to the many more traditional educational technology presentations at the conference. This led to an email from two of the organisers from the Conference Executive Committee, Bert Kimura and Curtis Ho, thanking CARDE and the WildCARDEs for their participation.
WildCARDE Charlotte Dawson commented on the experience “I presented a topic at ICoME which sits right at the heart of professional identity. This directly followed the pandemic response I had observed in schools. Being a part of the research group at CARDE gave me the confidence to speak at an international conference for the first time. It made me realise that teacher research IS valuable.”
Nicholas Millar admitted to feeling some nerves about presenting at an academic conference but stated that “Taking part in ICoME20 was a new experience for me. My thesis collaborator, Nathalie and I presented our idea to investigate the ethical conflicts high school teachers/administrators may have as a result of the involuntary integration of Learning Management Systems into their schools. As a high school teacher, I felt a little out of my depth presenting to university lecturers and fellow masters students but to my surprise, it was a very mutually-accepting and relaxed atmosphere.” Alexander Corr stated that “I learned a lot about the wonderful work that is going on worldwide, which was a pleasure to listen to and discuss during and after the conference. Overall, I really enjoyed taking part as it was fun, encouraging and informative.”
Full details of all the presentations are listed on the Publications page of this website and the conference proceedings are available here.