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As someone who has been in (and occasionally out of) education for over 20 years, Chris Betcher has a few opinions on how he'd like it to work.  He is particularly interested in thinking about how schools need to change to accommodate 21st century learners and how technology can be used to make learning more interesting, relevant, fun and engaging. Chris is currently the R-12 ICT Integrator at Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney. He originally trained as an art teacher, but thanks to an interest in graphics and design found himself drifting away from that role and into a variety of technology related areas including the teaching of computing and multimedia, professional development of staff in ICT, network administration and ICT coordination, and even some private consulting in educational ICT. As an Adobe Educational Leader Chris also works with web multimedia and graphics, and is currently mentoring teachers across Australia through the Mastering Digital Media eLearning course.	Chris has been an active contributor to the OzTeachers online community since its early days.  He is also is an active member of the edublogosphere of global edtech communities and through blogging and other social technologies regularly contributes to the conversations taking place in that space.  Over the years he has lead a number of online initiatives and global collaborative projects, and presents regularly at various conferences and workshops around Australia on a wide range of ICT-related topics, including Interactive Whiteboards, Moodle and Web 2.0 technologies. He is also currently co-authoring a book on the effective use of IWBs and interactive technology for classroom teachers and school leaders with IWB guru Mal Lee. On the web  Chris blogs regularly about education, technology and ideas at www.betchablog.com He also produces The Virtual Staffroom podcast, which shares conversations with leading teachers about technology in the classroom.
Keynote Overview Learning is a Conversation Every time we share a conversation with someone else, we open new opportunities to grow and to learn. This notion of learning as an ongoing conversation is manifesting itself through the proliferation of blogs, podcasts, personal learning networks and numerous other means.  The social technologies which support these conversations have the potential to revolutionise our schools and the way our students learn in the 21st century. In this presentation, we explore some of the ways in which networked intelligence and the wisdom of the crowds can be used to create and share knowledge in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago.  This session will also include examples and demonstrations of collaborative communication technologies. Continue the conversation about this presentation on the wiki
Hands-on Workshop: The Conversation Continues... In this hands-on workshop, Chris Betcher shares five digital tools for creating ongoing conversations for learning. Voicethread - Every picture tells a story, but Voicethread adds an entirely new dimension to sharing those stories.  Not only is it a powerful tool for creating web-based digital stories, but it opens those stories up for the world to respond. Twitter - What it is, how it's used and why you should know about it.  Twitter is an extremely powerful tool for building and maintaining a personal learning network, and tapping into the wisdom of your very own "crowds". Reader - Learn to use an RSS aggregator such as Google Reader to subscribe to dynamic live feeds from the web. Create your own streams of personalised information, delivered directly to your browser. Buzzword - Welcome to the new world of RIAs, or Rich Internet Applications.  Learn how tools like Buzzword take the humble word processor and moves it to "the cloud", providing new opportunities for online sharing, creation and collaboration. Creative Commons - All this sharing and creating is great, but what about the copyright issues? Find out how Creative Commons provides a sensible platform for lawful sharing. Follow up this presentation on the wiki	Hands On Workshop: Creative Commons and Open Resources - Applying Open Source thinking to Education Copyright in the age of digital media makes less and less sense. In this age of collaboration, remixing, sharing and social connectivism, learning resources needs to be free and accessible to everyone! In this session we look at the advantages of Creative Commons licensing models that focus on  clearly stating how a resource can be shared.  We'll also look at a range of Open Source tools, repositories of free textbooks, images, videos, music, lessons, and more. You'll learn how to access these and contribute your own resources so others can benefit. This presentation is based on a conversation started by Karen Fasimpaur called Free Content + Open Tools + Mass Collaboration = Learning for All Follow up this presentation on the wiki