2009 Keynotes & Invited Speakers

This years conference boasts a wonderful line up of expert keynotes and invited speakers
that promise to entertain and inform delegates about the latest and future trends in 21st century learning.

             Opening Keynote Address

Greg Black

More Than a Tool
But Not Quite the Holy Grail:
Embedding technology in
learning and teaching

Presenter Details:

Greg Black is the Chief Executive Officer of Education.au limited, a ministerial company that provides leadership and direction in the development, enhancement, standards and use of online distributed and managed national education network services. His current work involves oversight of a number of major national education and business projects. Greg was a Chief Executive in the Western Australian and South Australian governments from 1987-2004. He has been the Director General of Education in Western Australia and head of the Department of Further Education Employment Science and Technology in South Australia. Greg has also advised governments in the UK and Malaysia on their education and training systems. Greg's most recent work, prior to joining Education.au has involved futures thinking in education, business strategies and leadership development, and international education and executive coaching. 

Glenn McMahon

So, who should be doing the learning?
 

Presenter Details:

Glenn McMahon has a passion for making learning fun and engaging for his students.  A primary school teacher for 10 years before taking on his current role, Glenn took up the profession of teaching because his own school experience found him non engaged and bored in the classroom.  Becoming a teacher was a catalyst for aiming to engage all the students he taught to give them an interest in learning.  Through this Glenn saw the potential of using ICT as a way of giving students, no matter what their learning style, an opportunity to experience fun but importantly success.

Currently, Glenn works as an Education Officer for the Sandhurst Diocese in Victoria.  His focus is on Curriculum and Learning Technologies and specifically how to use ICT effectively as a tool for learning in the classroom.  This sees him work on any given day with either students, staff, leadership groups and even parents within the schools he works with.  Predominately the focus is on getting teachers and schools to engage with ICT to ultimate engage their students for the 21st century.

Opening Keynote Address

David Loader

A PERSONAL STORY:
Learning about, with and from technology

Presenter Details:

David Loader is a Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Education, Melbourne University (since 2002). He was a School Principal for 32 years. David was Principal of Kinross Wolaroi College, Orange (initially PLC, then Kinross and then Kinross Wolaroi) 1971-8, Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne 1979 - 1996 and Wesley College, Melbourne 1997-2002.
He is the author of two books. The Inner Principal published in 1997 by Falmer Press, London. This book gives a psychoanalytical perspective on school leadership. Jousting for the new generation; Challenges to contemporary schooling published in Australia by ACER Press in 2007 provides a critique of modern day schooling. David is a Board member of Swinburne University and National Institute of Circus Arts. In Australia's centenary, he was awarded the Centenary Medal 'for outstanding services to education.' In 1999, the Australian College of Education awarded him the Sir James Darling Medal and in 2008, David received the Gold Medal from Australian Council for Educational Leaders

Besides being a regular contributor to Teacher (published by ACER) David works as a leadership guide (mentor) writer and speaker. He is particularly interested in studying leadership, ICT and futures. David is a fellow of the Australian College of Education, Australian Council of Educational Leaders and the Australian Institute of Management. He is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Dean Groom

Learning 'virtually' everywhere

Presenter Details:

Dean Groom is the Head of Educational Development Design in Macquarie University Sydney, working in curriculum renewal, educational technology, and innovation to integration using technologies in teaching and learning. He was previously the Head of Information Technology at Parramatta Marist, Australia's first Project Based Learning school - and unique in it's use of entirely Web2.0 platforms in the classroom. Dean is a fellow with the international Powerful Learning Practice - created by Will Richardson and Sheryl Nasbaumm-Beach, and presents workshops locally for K12, in public and private sectors and internationally. He is a co-founder of Second Classroom, an internation group of educators developing curricula for virtual learning and game based learning, nomitated in 2009 for Edublogger of the year for personal work, and his work in virtual worlds with Teen Second Life. He's also parent with 3 children in primary public education. Dean has a pre-education history in advertising and design, working in early web technologies for some of the worlds biggest brands and proud to say old enough to have purchased the first colour Apple Macintosh and Adobe Photoshop 1, so is a life long geek.

Sue Urban

Digging up diggers:
Using web resources to uncover ANZAC Day / Remembrance Day

Presenter Details:

Sue is the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from the International Society for Technology in Education and will receive her award in Washington DC in July, 2009. She is also the current Educator of the Year for the Australian Council of Computers in Education and prior to that received the CEGSA Educator of the Year award.

After teaching 20 years in Catholic schools, with a variety of roles, Sue now teaches IT at Wilderness School, Medindie and greatly enjoys teaching IT from Reception to Year 11. This presentation marries her two passions IT and Australian Military History.

Campbell Menzies

 IT in the new SACE

Presenter Details:

Campbell is a Curriculum Services Officer (CSO) at the SACE Board of South Australia and is responsible for the administration of a group of subjects in Stage 1 and 2, along with Chief Assessors and advisory groups. Campbell is CSO for Information Technology Studies and Information TechnologySystems, Design and Technology, Information Processing and Publishing,Accounting, Community Studies, Geography, Economics and Media Studies. He has expertise in some, interest in all, and excellent backup from his team.

Of himself Campbell says:
At a young age I made a Tic-tac-Toe computer out of matchboxes and beads, and progressed to a wires and lights adding machine.  I learned Fortran and BASIC using puched cards and OMR at University of Adelaide, and when micrcomputers hit my country school was put in charge of a room of BBCs which I extended to a whole school network. I have been on advisory groups, examination panels, and moderation panels. This year I took on the newly create position of Curriculum Services Officer, and have been heavily involved in writing curricula for the new SACE. I have a wife who teaches online at Open Access College, 4 children in their twenties who all use computers very competently and very often, and 4 computers to share between my wife and myself (that's only because she made me throw one away).

Jane Toop & Tamra Waye

Fair Play: Inquiry Learning and IWBs in the Early Years

Dr. Olivia Clark

Ins and outs of Scootle (Workshop)
 
 
Presenter Details:

Dr Olivia Clarke is a senior project manager at  The Learning Federation (TLF). Her role is to support education jurisdictions and sectors as they seek to implement the TLF digital content into their educational programmes. Olivia's doctoral studies focused on a comparative study of new multimedia environments for teaching and learning in schools in California and Victoria. She has been Curriculum Coordinator at PLC, Melbourne and a teacher of History and Indonesian language.

Greg Carey

Mega Trends in Emerging
Learning Technologies

Presenter Details:

Greg is a teacher with more than 30 years experience and has been awarded a number of Department of Education and Children's Services (South Australia) scholarships to examine the preparation of senior students with a disability for transition to post-school options and the role of flexible delivery. He has extensive experience in the development of flexible learning programs in developing countries. His contribution to the development of a flexible learning program to train elementary teachers in Papua New Guinea was recognised through the awarding of Fellowship to the Australian College of Educators in 1998. From 1997 to 2002 the PNG-AusAID Elementary Teacher Education Support Project trained more than 12,000 teachers and is believed to be the largest single teacher education program in the world.

Tony Whillas                    

Moodle - Anywhere-Anytime Learning             

Presenter Details:

An educator for some 41 years in an eclectic range of roles and widespread locations, he:
•    started teaching-life as a  Science and Chemistry teacher in a high school – with a first year Latin class thrown in for interest!  The repertoire expanded over the years to include: the introduction of senior secondary Biology to two schools, junior and senior secondary Mathematics, Practical Skills, early childhood to tertiary English as a Second Language and ending with Information and Communication Technologies [ICT] across the curriculum and learning levels [Years 3 to 11].
•    was employed as a teacher, senior, subject master, senior subject master, deputy headmaster, headmaster, senior and principal education officer, curriculum developer, regional secondary inspector, area adviser, network coordinator in high schools, technical high schools, area schools and provincial high schools
•    was located in metropolitan Adelaide, country South Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The eight years, initially on secondment, working and living in Papua New Guinea from 1974 to 1982 – from just prior to Independence to post Independence - rekindled his interest in languages and linguistics.  This lead to post-graduate studies in ESL and linguistics and a change in direction on return to Australia into English as a Second Language as teacher, Area Adviser and Network Coordinator with considerable involvement in developing, writing and facilitating professional learning through the variants of the ESL in the Mainstream and Language and Literacy courses.  In addition, he started using a PC and Mac PowerBook to assist with the tasks of preparing materials, administration, record keeping and information and resource storage.

One of the ESL courses was an ‘on-line’ course using WebCT as the Learning Management System back in the mid-1990s.  Editing, presenting and a need to do course development introduced him to on-line learning.  When his time as a Reception to Year 12 ESL Support Network Coordinator for Country SA was up at the end of 2000, his focus and direction changed for the final time [well we will have to wait and see about that] into the cross curriculum essential learning area of ICT.  It was during these final years that he became an ICT coach, mentoring his colleagues prior to retirement from teaching in 2008. 

Although ‘retired’, he remains actively involved in the ICT field as an ICT Coach for Learning Technologies where he presents a range of Learning and Teaching courses across several country districts, collaborates in the development of new professional learning course in ICT and the subsequent  ‘Moodlisation’ of these courses into the Moodle on-line environment.  His current interests are in On-line Learning and Communities and teaching and learning on-line using a range of delivery vehicles - video-conferencing, Centra and Moodle.  To this end he also administers a school's Moodle Site, Centra site and EduCONNECT and he is in the process of setting up the MALe-Learning Community to support his colleagues and participants in past professional learning courses and workshops presented.