Today I want to share my notes from the speakers I have listened to. Please feel free to comment and share your opinion so that we can learn more together!
First of all, I have to say that the system was very easy to use. The interface was accessible to all the features needed. There were two main rooms Einstein and Graham Bell and there were also smaller rooms called Halls. The website was designed as if we are in a virtual world. There were a lounge and foyer area for attendees to visit stands. I downloaded a couple of brochures to check later. You could also have a one-to-one conversation with the specialists online. And also between the speeches, we listened to an amazing jazz band performance which gave a real chic conference vibe to the entire event.
This year due to the pandemic the summit happened on the online platform where we logged in with ticket codes that we've purchased. The main theme was "Society 5.0". This term was mentioned a few years ago in Germany by Japan and explained as "super-smart society". It symbolizes the digital transformation within society at every level. And on Saturday, we got a chance to listen to 70 speakers around the world explaining the importance of technology for our society and most importantly for education. There were very prominent figures around the world such as Prof. Dr. Fernando Reimers from Oxford, PISA Director Andreas Schleicher, Prof. Dr. Stephen Krashen from CA, Prof DR. Acar Baltaş, and many more academicians, journalists, teachers, CEO's, managers, and so on.
The summit started with informative speeches of Şirin Karadeniz and Işıl Boy Ergül by explaining what Society 5.0 means and why it is important.
Educating Students for Their Future, not Our Past by Andreas Schleicher
Andreas Schleicher, the director of PISA talked about education. He had an informative presentation with charts and graphs explaining the OECD results. He talked about the effects of the pandemic on education worldwide. He said Turkey has lost 2.000 Billion dollars of GDP due to corona-induced learning. He mentioned how technology changed the ways for us to access information and how it affected reading literacy around the world. The noteworthy data was that reading was mostly linear between the years of 2000-2003. He said, however, with new technologies reading was not only about extracting knowledge but it was also constructing a new piece of information. He also said that education systems had a hard time changing and keeping up with new technologies. He also mentioned that Turkey has a deficiency in basic literacy skills. I felt that when I started the university as an undergraduate student. Now I can see clearly how hard for some students to read, understand and create. Relating to this, he stated that only %9 of students can distinguish between fact and opinion. He mentioned the school hours and productivity which were completely contrary to each other. Finland was the most productive with the lowest school work. The presentation was full of significant findings that must be a concern for not only the educators but also the entire world. He mentioned that we need everybody for our economies. The "social pain" has to be passed to progress. He said;
"Google knows everything. The world rewards you for what you do."
I learned a lot of things from this speech. I highly recommend everyone to check the OECD website to learn more.
Some New Hypotheses about How We Learn, and What They Mean for Technology by Prof. Dr. Stephen Krashen, Dr. Nooshan Ashtari
I was so excited when I heard that Dr. Krashen will have a speech this year on ETZ. My expectations were met right away. Firstly, he is a very casual, intelligent man. He made little jokes all the time. I enjoyed listening to him very much. His opening and reasoning to what he was talking about were very inspiring to me. This was one of those rarest moments when I heard the unity in the entire conversation. He mentioned prominent figures and their lives. He said, "We all have something that we are good at." He talked about the common points of those people he mentioned. He said they see the joy and they love working, studying on things they do. At that moment I realized until this point of my life I magically and surprisingly pursued what I always loved: Foreign languages. I realized I never studied for English (except university exam). And he had amazing advice for everyone. He also mentioned a similar thing with Mr. Schelicher, "Technology should be a part of the things that we can’t do." He inspired me. Also, Dr. Ashtari made me think about academic writing. She mentioned she thought the intense, hard, complicated writing style was the right thing to do. And Dr. Krashen added that we always think that harder is better. Their speech was inspiring and motivating for me on many levels. I highly recommend you to listen to him if you find the chance.
Teknoloji ile Zenginleştirilmiş Öğretim Tasarımı by Dr. Işıl Boy Ergül
This session was by dear Dr. Işıl Boy Ergül and it was in Turkish. She spoke about Assure Analysis model and recommended many digital tools and activities to do at online and face-to-face classrooms. I mentioned many of the tools she had suggested on my blog before. You can check them out. I'll tell you the ones I took notes of. She recommended Edpuzzle, My view board, Nearpod, Mentimeter, poll everywhere, Padlet, Coogle, and many more. The best part was that she explained briefly how we can use them. It was an informative session indeed.
Hadi Sınıflarımızı Ters-Yüz Edelim! by Dr. Ezgi Aydemir Altaş
In this seminar, Dr. Ezgi Aydemir Altaş talked about flipped classrooms. Her presentation was very informative. She gave the basics of a flipped classroom, showed digital tools and ways to successfully implement a flipped classroom. She suggested that flipped materials should be varied. Teachers can record themselves and send the video before the lesson. Some tools were mentioned such as Screencast-O-Matic, Camtasia, Screencastify, etc. She also mentioned EdPuzzle which one of my favorite tools. This tool can increase interactivity with the content by also allowing teachers to control whether students participated or not. She said it was important to monitor the process since it requires autonomy. She added that during the classroom communication should be prioritized to make flipped learning process better. Q&A sessions, group or pair work, brainstorming and many other activities should be done to be controlled to less controlled to best contribute to engagement and learning. In that sense, she said, evaluation of the process is crucial. Her advice was to use digital tools such as Kahoot, Quiziz, Mentimeter, Poll everywhere, Woo clap, etc. in the end. Overall, I enjoyed her speech and took important notes for my future practices.
Dijital Dünyanın Psikolojisi by Prof.Dr. Acar Baltaş
And lastly, the closing was made by Prof. Dr. Acar Baltaş. He had an amazing speech on the Digital World's Psychology. He summarized the event in a broader sense and gave very useful advice. He said we had to change our mindsets towards everything to use technology and the life we live in. He touched on very important issues but I am not going to summarize his speech I will just quote him.
"Buying tablet PCs is not that hard. The important is to change the mindset."
"We need to give up democracy for prosperity and we need to give up freedom for security."
"People need to have a meaningful production to be happy and to live."
Pardon my translation from Turkish to English. I hope I could give you a brief from what I have heard from that day.
I'm delighted to have attended this huge event. It made me think and rethink certain issues in my mind. I've also seen how far I've become in my university journey as a teacher. I highly suggest you attend the conference next year. The theme is "Social Impact". Thank you so much for reading and do not forget to follow ETZ to learn and explore more. 
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