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A teachable moment…

Tomorrow, this will start my Year 10 English lesson. It’s a teachable moment, taken from the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. These are the words of Danny Boyle, the Artistic Director, explaining what motivated and inspired what was, in my book, a brilliant insight into Britain’s impact on the modern world. There is much in these words that our students can benefit from. Think about using them in a classroom sometime this week.

At some point in their histories, most nations experience a revolution that changes everything about them. The United Kingdom had a revolution that changed the whole of human existence. In 1709 Abraham Darby smelted iron in a blast furnace, using coke. And so began the Industrial Revolution. Out of Abraham’s Shropshire furnace flowed molten metal. Out of his genius flowed the mills, looms, engines, weapons, railways, ships, cities, conflicts and prosperity that built the world we live in. It was a revolution that filled the world with noise, smoke, prosperity, pain and possibility.

In November 1990 another Briton sparked another revolution – equally far-reaching – a revolution we’re still living through. Tim Berners – Lee invented the World Wide Web, and built the world’s first website. He took no money for his invention. This, he said, is for everyone.

Just like the Industrial Revolution, the digital revolution is turning the world upside down, taking music, books,shopping, conversation, information to places that they never went before.

But flickering in the smoke and noise and excitement, you can sometimes glimpse a single golden thread of purpose – the idea of Jerusalem – of the better world, the world of real freedom and true equality, a world that can be built through the prosperity of industry, through the caring nation that built the welfare state, through the joyous energy of popular culture, through the dream of universal communication. A belief that we can build Jerusalem.

And that it will be for everyone.

Danny Boyle

Artistic Director

London 2012 Olympic Games

Opening Ceremony

Another thing I liked – an Olympic opening ceremony featuring great contemporary artists like the Artic Monkeys.

Arctic Monkeys – London Olympic Games 2012 from Arctic Monkeys France on Vimeo.

One for the history books, or eBooks, as they may be. Lessons for us all can be found in that ceremony.

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School’s out Friday

Take a few minutes to watch the Improv Everywhere team make a game of mini golf into world championship stuff. Very endearing.

I really hate it when I see the only posts here over the last few weeks being School’s out Friday posts. My reality has been that the last 5 weeks have been quite manic. Finding time to post here about what I’ve been involved in has been too difficult because I’m planning the next thing as soon as I’ve finished the last!

Today I presented at the SLAV Conference at the MCG here in Melbourne. It was a great day and I really felt like a lot of people in the room were open to ideas I was presenting. I could be wrong about that; it can be quite difficult to gauge when you’re the presenter. I’ll try and do the day justice by writing about it, and numerous other events, over this weekend.

It’s early to bed for me now so that I can awaken at 5.30am to see the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games. I love a good opening ceremony so I’m hoping it lives up to the hype. Even if it doesn’t, I like to pay due respect to major events like that by setting my alarm clock to meet the action in the time zone of whatever country is the host. My Olympic Games Opening Ceremony memories extend back to Moscow in 1980, when it seemed that the Russians had used their enormous population to great effect to impress us all with crowd participation. Here’s a trip down memory lane for you.

Have a great weekend. Looks like a rainy one for Melbourne. Hope the forecast is looking better wherever it is you may be. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

Last night, I presented my talk at TEDxMelbourne Education Leadership. I’m not going into detail about that here, other than to say that it was very well received and I’m very humbled by the kind words that have come my way over the last 24 hours.  A post over the weekend will be coming. Right now, I’m totally exhausted and will be heading to bed as soon as I press publish here.

In the meantime, you can utilise 19 minutes or so watching the incredibly gifted Neil Gaiman deliver a speech that will stay with you long after you’ve watched it. I used this in my Yr 10 English class earlier this year and my students took so much away from it that they can apply to their own learning. They thought it was well worth the time invested watching it. Lucky Neil, he had a lecturn and notes to refer to!

Enjoy your weekend. I hope the sun will be shining where you are. Sleep beckons!

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School’s out Friday

This the the 2012 version of ‘Where the hell is Matt?‘. This time, he has varied the dance moves and tried to be in keeping with more traditional dances from the countries he visits. David Pogue interviewed Matt this week; if you’re interested in the background details about the creation of the video, take a read. Matt’s also released the outtakes video, and I think I prefer it- there’s something really touching about people from all differing nationalities joined together in the spirit of doing something fun.

It feels a bit to me like ‘Where the hell is Jenny’ at the moment. I’ve been on the move for the last few weeks with conferences and a family holiday. I’m very happy to report that tonight I landed back in my home town of Melbourne and am very happy to be writing this post from the warmth of my bed! Travelling is exciting, but the old adage, ‘There’s no place like home’, starts to ring true when you’ve been away for awhile.

There’s no rest for the wicked though (cliches flying thick and fast tonight!). Next Thursday night is TEDxMelbourne: Education Leadership, and I’m one of three speakers presenting there. For the next six days, that’s my focus. I’ll be fine tuning my talk and hoping I can deliver it with passion. I’m very honoured to have been asked to speak and want to do the event justice. I’ll certainly be sharing my thoughts on the process here, so keep an eye out for a post or two over the next week.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. Let’s hope the sun shines for us. 🙂

 

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Planes, Trains and Conferences – Part 1: ISTE 2012

(Sorry, late getting to some reflective posts about recent conferences. I’m holidaying with the family, and have decided that they deserve more of my focus than this space. A good call, in my opinion!)

Planes:  Did you know it’s illegal for groups of 3 or more to congregate in the aisles of planes flying over American air space? I didn’t, but was enlightened when this was announced on my flight to Los Angeles en route to the ISTE 2012 conference. I have to admit to entertaining the idea of amassing a crowd just to see what would happen. Would some air space tracking system notify authorities? Would an air marshall make him or herself known and disperse the offending party? Sensibly, I pushed the radical thought to the back recesses of my mind and settled down to view a film called 50/50. I was a sobbing wreck by the end of that one, and drew enough attention to myself that way, nullifying any need to create a scene by congregating with others in the aisles!

Trains: Well, it sounded like a good title for a post, but a trolley car in San Diego doesn’t quite qualify for a train. I caught one of those with Ashleigh, a teacher from Sydney who accompanied me to the mecca that is Seaworld. See my previous post for a review of that experience.

Conferences: Aahhh. The true intention of this post. ISTE 2012. My first ISTE Conference was Denver, 2010, so I had an idea of what to expect. A massive convention centre with thousands of educators congregating and an almost indecipherable conference program to make sense of. After re-reading my 2010 ISTE reflection, I note that I’d identified the need to scrutinise the conference program carefully and select sessions early. #FAIL on my behalf. Once again, I was rushed off my feet getting my ISTE conference presentation prepared as well as correction and end of term report writing before boarding the plane. But, I did make a better go of getting to more sessions this time around. Last time, I found myself locked out of sessions I’d wanted to attend. This time, I got to sessions earlier and had booked some when registering for the conference. That doesn’t always mean you’ve made the right selection though. It’s kind of frustrating watching the twitter stream and being envious of the folks who are tweeting from a session you didn’t even know was on offer. I suppose that’s the issue with a conference of these dimensions. There are often 30 or so sessions running concurrently, and you can’t be in more than one place at a time!

Why I was there

Well, my real purpose for attending was to present about the work we have been doing at Toorak College to scale change beyond the classrooms of the few to the classrooms of many, and hence ensure all of our students are exposed to a skill set that prepares them for life in a knowledge economy. Here’s the premise I was working toward:

At Toorak College (Victoria, Australia) our Library Media Specialists have introduced an Information Fluency initiative to help both our teaching staff and students garner skills in keeping with the digital age we live in. We have introduced the TPACK model and the SAMR model to our teaching staff, and are working on re-envisioning curriculum with these models in mind. We have used the ISTE Students NETS curriculum planning tool to help us create Information Fluency Certificates at Yrs 7, 8 and 9 that embody a skill set we desire our students to acquire. Our Library Media specialists are working in a co-teaching capacity in classrooms to assist our teachers to help our students acquire these skills. We have introduced an edublogs platform and every student from Yrs 7 -10 has a blog they are using as their ePortfolio. It is our aim to have our students demonstrate their acquisition of skills, develop their own digital literacy understandings through use of a public web platform, and develop a positive digital footprint for themselves that they can share with their families, potential employers and University admissions officers. We are looking for whole school systemic adoption of a much needed skill set for the world our students are living in and the world they will find themselves working in.

You can find the presentation on my wikispaces site. (Once again, I’m frustrated that my Sliderocket presentation won’t embed here). My Principal, Mrs. Helen Carmody, agreed that, as educators, in the spirit of sharing, we should publish the Information Fluency Scope and Sequence document under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike  license. We’re not suggesting it’s perfect, but it may help other educators get a start on scaling change beyond teachers’ individual classrooms. It’s also embedded on the wikispaces page. I encourage you to visit and take a look. It would be great to get some feedback on it too. Leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

Some highlights

Yong Zhao’s keynote was fantastic. The guy just makes sense. Don’t take my word for it. Watch it yourself.

The keynote on the final day was also worth attending. So many attendees leave the conference early, and it’s a shame they missed this. Dr. Willie Smits discussed the collaborative work being done with educators to combat the decimation of the rainforest in Borneo and the resultant threats to the Orangutan population. Brisbane teacher Christopher Gauthier joined him later in the presentation to explain how his students had become ‘Earthwatchers‘ as part of the DeforestAction campaign. His passion for his work was palpable; this was exactly the kind of keynote that should have opened the conference, when attendance was at a premium. Take a look, it’s worth it – you’ll have to fast forward to get to the start of Willie Smits’ presentation so let things load and fast track through.

Doug Johnson, a Teacher-Librarian from Minnesota, never disappoints. He writes The Blue Skunk Blog, and he is an excellent presenter. He infuses humour and practical advice into his sessions. This session was about Bricks and mortar libraries, and what is necessary to ensure school libraries remain relevant in schools today. His wiki page supporting this session with links to posts he has written is accessible here. If you’re not already reading Doug’s blog, then you should be.

Ewan McIntosh delivered a presentation about Data Visualisation. This is a topic I’m very much interested in. I think teaching students how to work with data and present their findings in interesting, accessible ways is something we need to be exploring in schools today. Ewan introduced me to the work of David McCandless. I’ve since discovered the TED talk he delivered that encapsulates many of his visualisations and what they tell us. Again, best you take a look yourself.

The real highlight

Honestly, the real highlight of any conference like this is connecting with new friends and reconnecting with old ones. Getting to see Lisa Parisi and Diana Laufenberg again was just great. Lisa made a special effort to meet me in New York on a previous visit (Forever grateful for that Lisa) and I met Diana at Educon a couple of years ago. We’ve since met up in Melbourne and shared a night out together when she was presenting here. Seeing Sheryl Nussbaum Beach again was another highlight- a very good friend now thanks to our PLP time together. Getting to meet Ann Michaelson from Norway was fabulous- we both write for the PLP Voices blog and have now organised to connect our classrooms together in September. I was more than thrilled to get the opportunity to finally meet Carolyn Foote, a Teacher-Librarian from Texas. Carolyn and I have been twitter friends for a long time now, going back to 2008, so it was wonderful to finally meet face to face. There were many more catch ups with educators from all over, but I’d be writing for the next three hours if I tried to mention them all.

What was really wonderful about this conference, and what made it a special experience for me, was catching up with some Australian educators, and meeting some for the first time. Weird really, that you have to travel so far to meet people who live in the State next door (New South Welshman!). Cameron Paterson, Stacey Taylor, Maurice Cummins, Leanne Windsor, Tom Lee, Mike Wheadon, Angela Thomas – thanks for sharing some really fun times, and for being such a supportive Aussie contingent at my presentation. I hope we get to meet up together again sometime and share a meal together – you made my time in San Diego one full of friendship and laughter. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing, but I found myself gravitating to Australians at both Denver and San Diego ISTE conferences. Maybe there’s comfort in sharing common ground, or maybe it’s just that the people I’ve hung out with are just great people. I’d like to think the latter. 🙂

Takeaway

It still perplexes me how much time is spent discussing hardware at conferences like this.  A number of sessions focused on the idea of Bring your own technology and iPad rollouts. To my way of thinking, the discussion needs to centre around why you’d want to roll out the hardware – what is it our kids need to be doing with it to make the learning better? The other thing that struck me was how the tools based sessions had educators spilling out the doors. It seems like we haven’t gotten past people needing to be taught how to use a tool. Hand holding still seems necessary rather than people taking it on board to self direct their own learning. Heads up people – YouTube is full of screencasts explaining pretty much most things these days – take a visit, you might like what you see.

Like last time, I’ve come away from ISTE feeling like Australia is in pretty good shape. Even Alan November was telling participants in his session that they’d be at an advantage if they were sitting next to an Australian. We might bemoan our systems at times, but at least we’ve seen our Government recognise the need to build capacity within our population to meet the needs of a global economy head on. Perhaps it is still our tyranny of distance that makes us look outwards and try to find ways to link ourselves to the rest of the world. Maybe ISTE should be looking to us for guidance? They are running a study tour visiting our shores later this year. It would be interesting to hear from participants on that to see their impressions of our education system here.

San Diego- thanks for putting on a great show. Those clear blue skies in the middle of a freezing cold Melbourne winter really helped quell the seasonal affective disorder!

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School’s out Friday

You could be mistaken for thinking that I’d fallen off the planet given my lack of posts of late. I’m still here, but have just been incredibly busy. In the last two weeks I’ve attended and presented at the ISTE conference in San Diego, returned home for three days, and then headed to Cairns where I was a Keynote presenter at the SLAQ conference. Right now, I’m on the Gold Coast holidaying with my family. It’s been a tad full on to say the least. Next up is the TedxMelbourne: Education Leadership talk on July 19th. That’s occupying much of my thinking space right now, so apologies for the neglect here.

I do intend to write follow up posts reflecting on the two conferences I’ve just attended. Hopefully there’ll be some reflective time over the next few days to allow me to get to this space to share my thoughts.

In the meantime, I’m feeling a bit like a Sea World tragic. While in San Diego, I ventured out to Sea World with Ashleigh, a teacher from Sydney. If you are of my vintage, you probably grew up on a diet of American television, where plenty of sit-com families ventured to the Mecca that was Sea World to see Shamu the Killer Whale. I’ve always wanted to see the Killer Whales there, and I was pretty happy when Ashleigh said she’d join me. I told her I’d always wanted to see the Orcas and Shamu and she seemed just as keen. When we got there, we headed straight for the area housing Shamu (they call the show ‘Shamu’ even though the whales have different names). You could go to the underwater viewing area and the whale was a sight to behold. Incredibly huge. A real OMG moment. Even more so for Ashleigh, who until the moment when she laid eyes on it, had apparently no idea what she was going there to see! I’d been babbling on about Shamu and Orcas, and she told me she had no idea what a ‘Shamu’ was!

We got ourselves seats in the ‘soak zone’ for the show featuring the Orcas, wondering just how wet we could possibly get. Well, let me tell you, they don’t call it the soak zone for nothing. The whales back up to the crowd, splash their tails in the water, and you get the full force of hundreds of liters of water coming at you with all the pressure of a fire hose. We were soaked through and through. I was filming with a flip camera right through this; needless to say, I haven’t seen the footage because the flip camera has packed up as a result! It was a pretty spectacular show, but you do come away thinking that it’s unnecessarily cruel to keep such magnificent creatures confined in such small spaces. Little wonder there’s been some terrible incidents over the years involving Orcas and trainers, with the most recent in 2010 leading to the death of a trainer. The trainers no longer go into the water with the Orcas during the shows. I’m using the BlogPress app to write this post and can’t embed a video it seems, but you can see what the show was like by following this link.

My Sea World tragic tale continues, because right now my family and I are staying at the Sea World resort in Queensland on our family holiday. While a theme park holiday is not exactly my idea of fun, my kids and husband are pretty happy with it, and I’m pleased to be spending time with them. Wish me luck, as I mind the bags while they live it up on rides that give me that nauseous feeling that I consider abhorrent. I’ll check the twitter stream while I wait. That’ll keep me happy!

It’s not exactly the warmest weather up here on the Gold Coast, but it beats what’s being served up in Melbourne at the moment. I hope you find a sunny spot over the weekend sometime and enjoy it with a beverage of your choosing. Have a good one. 🙂

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School’s out Friday

Rear Window Timelapse from Jeff Desom on Vimeo.

If you’re a fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, you’ll enjoy this timelapse of what Jimmy Stewart was viewing from his wheelchair bound existence in the film. It’s the film condensed into 2 minutes 58 seconds – a cracking pace!

A cracking pace is what I need to employ to get through a power of work this weekend. I’ve got presentations to polish and report comments to write. Not exactly riveting fun, but necessary work. This time next week I’ll be preparing to leave for San Diego and the ISTE Conference. So much to do before then, best I get to it.

Have a great weekend- find something fun to so and I’ll live vicariously through you!

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Life, not as we know it

Cast your eyes over this and tell me it’s not a possibility. You better have the coffers full if you want unfettered access to the sky!

Thanks Tom Scott, for imagining what might be. I’ll be using this in my English class this week. This is storytelling, 21st century style. Teachers everywhere, this is the kind of thing we can and should be doing in our classes. We should be extending our students creative thinking and using combinations of print, visual and digital mediums to transfer meaning. At a recent Vate Conference, Professor Robert Dixon from the University of Sydney said that the study of English in Secondary schools is a multi discipline, recognising the need to address digital and visual literacy as well as print. This is certainly what the documentation in the Australian Curriculum is telling us.

So, sharpen your skills. Make sure you can help your students imagine and create.

 

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School’s out Friday

This was the brief advertising firm D1gits was given;

The iPad act was a custom creation, made to be performed in the Stockholm booth at MIPIM trade show in Cannes. It was commissioned by lovely bureau Step2 Communications and the brief was to create a visual, magical and striking presentation about Stockholm using modern technology.

I think they filled the brief pretty well, don’t you?

A long weekend ahead in celebration of the Queen’s birthday. A monarchist I am not, but I’m happy to take the holiday break right now. I’ve got plenty of work to do, so this weekend will be heads down with fingers taped to the keyboard I’m afraid. I’ll try and squeeze some time with family and friends in, provided I keep myself on track and knock over as much as I can for two presentations and some school report writing . I know, you’re brimming over with envy right now, aren’t you? Who could resist such a tempting weekend’s activity? Me, for one, but I’ve got to commit or I’ll be mightily stressed this time next week!

I hope your weekend sounds more promising than mine. Enjoy whatever comes your way.  🙂

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Australian Curriculum Conference – Toorak College

Toorak College (where I teach!) is hosting ‘Exploring and Implementing the Australian Curriculum‘ on the 23rd and 24th of July. This conference is an opportunity to engage with key people in a variety of curriculum fields who are going to share their understanding of the new curriculum with participants. I know there are many teachers who have perhaps read some of the documentation, but have questions regarding the implementation process. This conference is a wonderful opportunity to have some of those questions clarified.

What follows is directly from the conference program.

Keynotes

There are three clusters of keynote speeches in the conference and in total 11 keynotes.

Cluster 1 – Structure and General Capabilities

Keynote Speech 1 (by Professor Barry McGaw – ACARA)
Australian Curriculum to Promote 21st Century Learning

The Australian Curriculum includes a clear focus on major disciplines of knowledge as well as on general capabilities that are sometimes described as 21st Century skills or competencies. This balance of focus is important and deliberate. The curriculum also focuses on three cross-curriculum priorities that deserve current attention. The presentation will explain the logic of the structure and its consequences.

Biography of the Speaker:

Professor Barry McGaw is a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. He has previously been Director for Education at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Executive Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Keynote Speech 2 (by Dr. David Howes – VCAA)
Implementing the Australian Curriculum: from National to State Level

This address will explore the challenges and opportunities of whole curriculum design during the iterative development of the Australian Curriculum.

Biography of the Speaker:

Dr. David Howes is the General Manager of the Curriculum Division of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). He worked from 2003 – ¬2006 as a technical adviser with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) in Cambodia. Prior to that, he worked with the Victorian Department of Education and taught and held curriculum leadership positions for ten years in schools in the western suburbs of Melbourne and in London. He has completed post-graduate studies in education and public sector administration at the Institute of Education, University of London; Monash University; the Australia-New Zealand School of Government and the University of Melbourne. His professional interests include curriculum design, policy sociology, the nexus between school and higher education and micro-level studies of aid and development. David’s publications include school text books; refereed journal articles on student learning; book chapters on school curriculum reform and the impact of globalisation on higher education in South-East Asia and contributions to subject association journals.

Keynote Speech 3 (by Mr Tony Brandenburg – President of the Australian Computers in Education Council)
Technology as a general capability is not general, at all!

Tony will explore ICT as a general capability in the Australian Curriculum. He will challenge his audience to use technology in their teaching and in the students learning. He will explore social media, mobile technology and cloud computing as learning tools. He will also encourage participants to explore the Horizon Report as a way of thinking about the future of digital technologies in an education setting.

Biography of the Speaker:

Tony Brandenburg has taught at all levels of education both in Australia and internationally and has worked with government departments in Australia and the Middle East. At present he works as Professional Development Manager for the Victorian Institute of Teaching.

He is an experienced educator who has been involved with educational technology for more than 30 years. Currently he is a Director on the Board of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and is a member of the ISTE International Committee.

He is President of the Australian Computers in Education Council, which also awarded him a fellowship in 2010.He is a past president of ICTEV, the Victorian teacher association, which focuses on the use of ICT by teachers.

He has spent much of his teaching life working with technology, arguing for better resources and challenging much of the educational status quo in relation to ICT. He believes that passionate advocacy, excellent information and clear goals and objectives are essential when dealing with system and government authorities.

He has significant experience with the ‘NETS’, especially in lifting their usage in Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.In 2005 he was presented with the Australian Leader of the Year in Educational Technology. He lists his passions as spending quality time with his family, educational technology pedagogy, strategic planning/policy development, travel and snow skiing. (Usually in that order!)

Keynote Speech 4 (by Ms Robyn Marshall – Director of Teaching and Learning at St Leonard’s College)
Using the Understanding by Design curriculum framework to integrate the Australian Curriculum

How best should we integrate the Australian Curriculum? How can we move from the content based, textbook driven curriculum to a concept based inquiry curriculum? Fundamentally, how can we use the Australian Curriculum to enhance learning for all our students? The Australian Curriculum can provide an opportunity for schools to have a significant impact on the teaching and learning process. The Understanding by Design framework, (often known as Backward Design) offers some of the answers to the questions posed above. By creating high quality units, based on the Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards, as well as reconceptualising the nature of teaching and of assessment, student learning can be ignited and the role of the teacher can be transformed.

Biography of the Speaker:

Mrs Robyn Marshall has taught secondary students in 4 states and sees the tremendous value of the Australian Curriculum as a unifying force, rather than something that divides. She began her teaching career in country New South Wales, before moving to Canberra, Adelaide and finally Victoria. Recently Robyn has specialised in the Middle Years, in particular the development of innovative Middle Years Programs in Nanjing, China and Clunes in country Victoria. She is currently Director of Teaching and Learning at St Leonard’s College and has successfully led the development of the Understanding By Design framework in a number of schools.

Cluster 2 – Cross Curriculum Priorities

Keynote Speech 5 (by Ms Jacinta Mooney)
Incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures into your School Curriculum

This address explores how the national Cross Curricula Priority of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island histories and culture can be incorporated into an individual school curriculum. What opportunities does this priority present for curriculum design and guarantee that students attain the skills and knowledge intended by the framework.

Biography of the Speaker:

Jacinta Mooney is a secondary English and History teacher who spent nine years in the Northern Territory working in Indigenous health and Indigenous education. Jacinta has extensive experience living and working in Aboriginal communities, including Ngukurr, Wadeye and Santa Teresa. Jacinta focused on developing curriculum and strengthening the relationship between the school and the community. After two years training educators in Ethiopia, Jacinta is working in high schools in the North-Western suburbs of Melbourne.

Keynote Speech 6 (by Ms Jennifer Ure – Asia Education Foundation)
Implementing Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia in the Australian Curriculum

Asia is now the region currently emerging as one of history’s greatest catalysts for worldwide change. The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians calls for all Australians students to develop new skills, knowledge and understanding related to the Asian region and Australia’s engagement with Asia in order to meet the challenges and opportunities of living and working with our neighbours.

The Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia priority in the Australian Curriculum provides essential learning for all Australian students. This session will look at how this priority appears in the Australian Curriculum; what it means for developing curriculum programs and presents resources and ideas to support its inclusion in classroom practice. Included will be the Australian context for learning about the Asian region and examples of Asia Education Foundation programs that support schools’ implementation of the Asia priority.

Biography of the Speaker:

Jennifer Ure has been with the Asia Education Foundation since 2008. She manages national projects including the Leading 21 Century Schools: engage with Asia project, a national leadership initiative for principals and school leaders. In addition, Jennifer manages the AEF’s web portal that provides services and resources for teachers and schools to implement the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priority of Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia.

Prior to working with the AEF, Jennifer worked in the Northern Territory for five years as the Curriculum Officer for Studies of Asia with the Department of Education and Training. In that role she delivered professional learning for educators and schools across the Territory. An important element of that work was linking studies of Asia with Indigenous education in remote schools.

Keynote Speech 7 (by Mr Kerry Bolger – Principal Cornish College)
Sustainability – the new educational imperative: more than just environmental education and is no longer an optional extra

This presentation will provide an insight into how one school has integrated educating for sustainability through its Prep to Year 9 curriculum. Participants will be introduced to a ‘sustainable thinking disposition” developed by Mr Kerry Bolger and Mrs Marcia Behrenbruch over the last decade.

In presenting the Bolger/Behrenbruch model of teaching and learning the audience will be challenged to consider the concept of sustainability in its broadest sense as the central purpose of a 21st Century education.

Biography of the Speaker:

Kerry Bolger is currently the Principal of Cornish College. He is a secondary trained teacher who started his teaching career with the Ministry of Education. After 20 years as an Economics/History teacher he was appointed as the Head of the St Leonard’s College Cornish Campus in 1991. Kerry has a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Special Education. He was awarded an Internal Teaching Fellowship to England in 1985 and was the recipient of a National Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006. His staff were awarded the Herald Sun Teaching Team of the Year in 2005 and the Campus was judged the Sustainable School Champion in 2005 by the University of New South Wales. Kerry has co-authored a number of articles on sustainability and he and his staff have developed a model of teaching and learning linking education for sustainable living with a concept driven, multidisciplinary, inquiry based educational program. Kerry was awarded a John Laing Professional Development Award for his contribution to the education of others in education by Principals Australia in 2011. He is a past President of the Victorian Branch of the Commonwealth League of Exchange teachers and is currently the Independent School Council of Australia representation on the National Sustainable School Network and the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative.

Cluster 3 – Learning Areas

History (by Ms Annabel Astbury)
The Shapes of the Australian Curriculum: History – Many voices, many stories

In this session, Annabel Astbury will examine the Australian Curriculum: History and present ideas on how to approach the challenges of implementing it at school level. The focus will be on the Foundation to Year 10 curriculum but will also include discussion on the progress which has been made on senior courses thus far.

Biography of the Speaker:

Annabel Astbury is the Executive Director of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria. Her role is a varied one which includes overseeing the operations of the association, focusing on the direction and development of professional learning programs for teachers; advising and consulting with curriculum and assessment authorities.

Science (by Prof Denis Goodrum)
Australian Science Curriculum: Implementation and implications

Biography of the Speaker:

Denis Goodman is an Emeritus Professor and former Dean of Education of the University of Canberra. He has been involved in many national and international activities in Science education. In 1998 he was a visiting scholar at the National Research Council in Washington DC, working on a project examining inquiry and the National Science Education Standards. He is presently Chair of the ACT Teacher Quality Institute

National projects for which Denis has been responsible include:

  • Primary Investigations – a curriculum resource for primary schools with an associated professional learning model.
  • Status and Quality of Teaching and Learning of Science in Australian Schools.
  • Collaborative Australian Secondary Science Project (CASSP) that evaluated a teacher change model through the development of integrated curriculum and professional development resources.
  • Science by Doing – concept plan 2006 and Stage One 2009-11
  • Australian School Science Education: National Action Plan 2008–12
  • National Science Curriculum Framing Paper 2008

English (by Mr Sean Box – Acting Curriculum Manager VCAA)
English Goes National

This session will outline some of the new opportunities represented by the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: English. It will provide participants with an overview of the new English curriculum and how it differs from the current VELS curriculum and much common contemporary practice in Victorian schools. A particular focus of the session will be on the place and role of texts in the new curriculum and the inter-relationships between the three strands of Language, Literacy and Literature.

Biography of the Speaker:

Sean Box is Acting Curriculum Manager of English at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). Prior to working in the Curriculum Division, he held a position with Student Learning Division of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD). He has contributed to Australian Curriculum consultation and implementation in Victoria and Queensland.

Mathematics (by Dr Michael Evans)
Shape of the Mathematics Curriculum

Biography of the Speaker:

Dr Michael Evans is responsible for the ICE-EM Mathematics program. He has a PhD in Mathematics from Monash University and a Diploma of Education from La Trobe University. Before coming to ICE-EM, he was Head of Mathematics at Scotch College, Melbourne, and involved with the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in various capacities. He has also taught in public schools. In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Law by Monash University for his contribution to Mathematics Education, and in 2001 he received the Bernhard Neumann Award for contributions to Mathematics enrichment in Australia.

I’d encourage you to alert your teachers to this conference and sign up to attend. We really do need to have a complete understanding of all facets of the new curriculum. It would be great to see teachers from all curriculum areas increase their understanding of something that is going to impact us all.