Presenters
Keynote Speakers
Glen Pearsall
Glen is a leading secondary school teacher and an acclaimed presenter of professional development for classroom teachers across Australia. He has presented a wide array of professional development seminars and workshops for the TLN, AEU and Critical Agendas. Glen has a particular interest in the development of young teachers and has also developed and delivered a program of renewal for mid-career teachers. His expertise is in high quality instructional practice, and the development of classroom cultures based on sound pedagogy and educational research. He is a board member of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and has worked as a research fellow at the Australian Youth Research Centre
Cecilie Murray
Cecilie is Director of Delphian eLearning, specialising in learning innovation, and App-titude Learning, a developer of educational apps. She is an Australian leader in the use of ICT, well known for her work in eLearning using emerging technologies, mobile learning research, strategic planning and evaluation, online teaching and digital content development. She has previous experience as Group Manager of eLearning for Departments of Education in Victoria and Tasmania and at The Le@rning Federation. She has worked internationally on projects with Singapore, Indonesia, UK, USA and Japan. She is a contributor to a new book, Mobile Technologies and Handheld Devices for Ubiquitous Learning: Research and Pedagogy (ed Wan Ng).
Dr Gerry White
Principal Research Fellow, Teaching Learning and Leadership at the Australian Council for Educational Research, Gerry is a regular writer, researcher, keynote speaker, and panelist at numerous national and international conferences.
Prior to leading the Australia’s education and training ICT agency, Gerry was a Teacher, Lecturer, Mathematics Consultant, Curriculum Manager, School Principal and Education System Deputy Director.
Gerry’s experience includes management of large scale national and international ICT projects, global networking, industry liaison, support for professional learning and leadership in education. His interests are in educational policy and leadership, research into the take up, use and application of digital technologies in teaching, learning and leadership, as well as collaboration and online communities of practice.
Steve Harris
Steve is Principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, a school with over 1200 day students and a further 350 online students. Steve is also Founder and Director of the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning, a research and development unit within his school. Steve is a passionate and innovative educator and has presented papers at many national and international conferences on topics relating to the effective integration of technologies into the classroom, as well as strategies for transforming the pedagogic practice of teachers.
Breakout Presenters
Erin Weightman began her teaching career in the UK, at an innovative Secondary school where open plan, flexible, ICT rich learning spaces were core to the 21st century education being provided for young people. Having taught in both primary and secondary settings, she has a breadth of experience in integrating the use of technology in a variety of classroom settings and is a Media/Multimedia specialist teacher. She has delivered Professional Learning for teachers as part of her official role working for the DEECD for the past two years and is currently an Ultranet Coach in Geelong.
Kyle Staggard is an experienced Mathematics teacher who has developed strong skills in teaching Maths with a particular emphasis on interactive technologies.
Bruce Carpenter has wide experience in the use of technology in teaching Physics. Stuart Payne is a skilled Maths teacher and has excellent skills in using technology in his teaching. David Castles is the Virtual Learning Project Manager with a background in Chemistry and Maths teaching.
Bruce and Stuart will share their learnings about online delivery and show some examples of the online learning objects they have created. Participants will have an opportunity to explore the course materials.
The Virtual Learning Network Project in which both are involved aims to provide comprehensive online courses for senior curriculum that are more than just a collection of independent learning resources. The courses are interactive, instructional and available to students 24/7, allowing self-paced learning within a traditional school environment or access to curriculum for remote students.
Gerry Kennedy is an Independent Inclusive Technology Consultant specialising in the areas of special needs, rehabilitation and assistive technology support in education and employment. Gerry promotes leading practice in the implementation and deployment of innovative ICT and Inclusive Technology in education and training. He strongly advocates for and promotes Universal Design principles and provision. He consults, presents, demonstrates, trains and advises parents, therapists, and other education and rehabilitation related professionals how to utilise and harness the features and functions of mainstream and specialised software as well as assistive device implementation.
John Pearce has spent more than thirty years as a teacher and leading teacher in primary schools. He now runs his own education consultancy where he has an ongoing interest in the use of ICT across the curriculum at both primary and secondary level. This interest was recognized with a Microsoft Innovative Teachers Award and a VITTA Outstanding Primary Teacher Award. John is also particularly interested in the use of blogs, wikis, podcasts and related social software in educational settings, co-authoring Technology Toolkit: An Introduction to Web 2.0.
Dan Belluz and Doug Bail
In their breakout session Dan Belluz will present some of the findings of the 2010 research project which looked at the impact of technology on boy’s education in Physics. This will include a hands-on opportunity for participants to use the experimental equipment used in this study. Doug Bail will present an enlightening discussion of mobile and other technologies available for the study of Science which allow students to see the bigger picture.
Damien Meunier is the Education Consultant for RM Education, world leaders in providing technology solutions to education. A former Victorian Primary Teacher, Damien now provides professional development in ICT integration, classroom technologies and flexible learning spaces. Damien is passionate about encouraging the use digital technologies in learning. The learning environment is critical to supporting our students with the development of 21 Century skills. As teachers, we may not be space designers, but we have an essential role to play in the design of our learning environments. During his presentation, Damien will share his experiences and ideas for keeping learning REAL.
Brett Fitzsimmons
Brett teaches both music and ICT at Brighton Grammar School. He holds a Masters in Software Engineering and has taught a range of programming and digital multimedia subjects from Year 9 through to VCE. Brett is a passionate advocate of the importance of ICT across the curriculum and has recently been engaged in looking at the impact of mobile technologies, such as the iPad on pedagogy.
Paul Rixon, widely referred to as the Father of video conferencing, has been intimately involved with every part of TAFE SA's educational videoconferencing network for many years with the aim to minimise the isolation and lack of opportunity for students not living in the major metropolitan areas of the South Australia. Prior to this, Paul developed the teaching methodologies used in South Australia for telephone teaching in schools. Paul was also part of the team that developed the DUCT telephones: a name that has gone on to symbolise Telephone conferencing for many since.
Louise Duncan is a leading teacher at Shepparton High School and has taken a leading role in the implementation of many eLearning programs at her school. She is a strong supporter of Edublogs and has led a team designing a new learning space and personal learning program which has been running successfully at the school for the past five years. The use of iPod touches within this program allowed for the exploration of personal mobile devices to improve student learning. Louise was awarded the Lindsay Thompson Fellowship in 2009 allowing her to continue her research into mobile learning in the UK and USA. Louise believes personal, mobile technology has a myriad of uses to connect students with their learning anywhere, anytime and to facilitate life-long learning. She believes educators have a responsibility to ensure students know how to use mobile technologies effectively to make them smart and responsible users in a world where mobile technology is ubiquitous. Her determination and unstoppable enthusiasm to embed technology within learning has inspired schools across the nation and around the world.
John Nalder, an overly-enthusiastic advocate for personalised, mobile and ubiquitous learning, works at the Learning Innovation Centre (Sunshine Coast) on developing teaching frameworks for mLearning and continuing to collaborate on the deployment of One Laptop Per Child XO machines into the hands of learners in remote Queensland schools. John has won many awards in the ICT area which has made him even more determined to share with other educators the ways that mobile technology such as the iPod Touch and iPad can enable transformational learning.