The Teachers’ Conference and ExCEL Fest is a biennial event where educators learn, connect and engage with thought leaders and practitioners. Organized by Singapore’s Ministry of Education, it provides educators with professional development and an avenue for novel learning experiences.
For the 10th edition held in 2021, Pico was appointed by the organizing committee to conceptualise and develop a virtual edition of the event.
Visitors to the platform could easily access a multitude of features, activities and functions. For example, live content such as webinars and keynote addresses were hosted and broadcast via the platform’s streaming support.
Many characteristics of the platform enabled the experience to be personalised to a granular level. Users could create their profiles and customise them by selecting unique avatar images. Their choice of profile attributes enabled a built-in recommendation feature to suggest webinar sessions of potential interest. A filter feature for all sessions and poster presentations created a more in-depth level of content personalisation. A gamification feature that unlocked ‘rare’ avatar images based on stars achieved by the user during the event helped to incentivise the experience.
The ‘ExCEL Fest 2021 Virtual Exhibition’ showcased award-winning projects and innovations from education institutions and offered users opportunities to discover the new innovations in the areas of teaching and learning, work processes and educational technology. Interactive sessions were included in the event programme for users to exchange ideas and best practices. Users were also able to network with the 79 participating exhibitors through the chat function, and even submit requests to adopt a featured project.
An award ceremony held in conjunction with the conference recognised educator achievements in categories including ‘Outstanding Innovator Award’, ‘Innergy – Work Processes’ and ‘Innergy – Academic/Training & Learning’.
In all, the three-day event welcomed more than 1,100 presenters and their teams, with the programme including 260 live interactions and 108 poster presentations on topics ranging from character and citizenship education to the use educational technologies. Upon completion of certain agenda, e-certificates were allotted to users for inclusion in their professional portfolios.