It’s now Monday, November 9 and I have safely returned to Canada. From my hotel in Salvador to arriving at my doorstep, the trip took over 26 hours. Unfortunately, I have no celebrity sightings to report this time around! The last day of the conference was once again inspiring, exciting and a touch overwhelming. We showed our booths again, and made our votes for “Educator’s Choice”. Canada’s pick was a teacher from Lesotho, Africa who had her students photographing indigenous plants and learn about what value they have. She did this without her school having any computer access. Her students used their parents’ cell phones as cameras, or drew pictures of the plants and then walked to the town’s internet cafe to learn about the plants. After lunch we got back to work in our groups. My group finished our project which was about telling the story of a city.

We used Salvador as an example and a piece of software that I had never used before called Deep Zoom. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to do a project like this ourselves. Here is a picture of me playing the recorder, of course, as our presentation was shared.

Later that day there was a presentation about the many problems we, meaning the entire world, are facing. While much of these problems seem impossible to solve (like poverty, war and global warming), one of main solutions talked about was education and technology. Even the blog we keep is a small step to making everyone realize that we are global citizens and not just people living in the suburbs. The day ended with the gala dinner. This felt like going to the Oscars, or I’d imagine that’s how it would feel if I ever got to go! There were drummers, dancers, and orchestra and lots of good food. The presentations of the awards were very slick and the mood of the audience was electric.  Everyone was given a blue and white necklace and had a ribbon tied onto their wrist.

The drumming group was incredible. There were kinds of drums, trumpets and dancers. They played nonstop for at least 40 minutes.

Inside the tent. Notice the orchestra on the stage. The members were high school students who had played their instruments for two years. They sounded much more experienced than that.

Harriet and Autumn from Indianna, USA, won one of the 12 awards presented that night for their project on Tic Tac Toe and the American Revolution. Here is Mr. Toft with them.

The first lady of Bahia, Salvador attended the event with her husband, the governor of Bahia.

Thanks you Microsoft Partners in Learning and Salvador, Brazil for giving all of us an experience of a lifetime that we will never forget.