2020 EdTechSA State Symposium
Thinking Technologically 2.0EdTechSA is proud to announce the reimagining of our state conference for 2020 as a one day Symposium
Please download a copy of the program below
Date:
Tuesday 29th September 2020
Venue:
Online via Zoom
Key Presenters
We have 12 global and local presenters and fantastic topics to explore.
Alice Keeler – California US
Alice Keeler is an expert in EdTech integration. Starting teaching math in 1999 and is currently a math teacher with Chawanakee Unified. She is an adjunct lecturer at California State University Fresno in the teacher credential program. Alice is a mom of 5 kids and lives in Fresno California. Google Certified Innovator, Microsoft Innovative Innovator, and New Media Consortium K12 Ambassador. Founder of CoffeeEDU. Co-Author of 5 Professional Development books including “50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom.” and “Ditch that Homework.” Alice has developed math curriculum and innovative online courses. She has led collaborative teacher teams for projects with Google such as YouTube for Teachers and Google Play for Education. Passionate that kids are not failures. Technology should improve learning through interactions, improved feedback, increasing relevance, and facilitating a student-centered classroom. Alice has a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics and a Masters in Educational Media Design and Technology.
Workshop: Learn from Alice Keeler
Alice Keeler is the world’s number one expert in teaching with Google products and Google Classroom. She is passionate about intentional use of technology for student centered teaching. It’s not digital it’s different. G-suite is not simply a tool to deliver content digitally. It is a tool that we can use to build relationships, collaborate, and give meaningful feedback. We get to re imagine the way we teach for today’s context. Let’s leverage the tools that we have to revolutionize the way that we deepen relationships with students, empower them, and spark curiosity.
Dayna Laur – Pennsylvania US
Dayna Laur’s arc of professional learning began in 1998. Her experience includes Special Ed., Advanced Placement, Department Chair, Career Academy Coordinator, and designing online coursework for adult learners. Her diverse facilitation and coaching expertise has allowed her to interact, globally, with pre-K to post-secondary professionals since 2008. At Project ARC, Dayna strives to empower educators and their learners by implementing authentic learning experiences, a topic she pioneered in her 2013 book, Authentic Learning Experiences: A Real-World Approach to PBL.
Workshop: Level-Up Your Online and Blended Instructional Practice Through the Lens of the SAMR Framework
Online or blended learning is here to stay, and we must embed high-level uses of technology in our instruction. Pedagogical shifts, designed as authentic project experiences in our virtual or face-to-face classrooms, have the power to move our students into a redefined level of learning. In this session, explore how online tools have the capacity to develop learner agency and support teacher practice through the SAMR Framework lens. The use of these countless free versions of online tools engages and empowers our learners to reach their full potential and become the innovative designers of our future.
Dr. Rebecca Vivian – Adelaide, South Australia
Research Fellow in the Computer Science Education Research Group. Rebecca has qualifications in Education and expertise in Computer Science (Digital Technologies) Education, Teacher Training and Educational Technology. She has collaborated extensively with various stakeholders across industry, education, and government to deliver education and research initiatives. She is the lead content developer and designer for our massively open online courses (MOOCs) and PL-in-a-Box initiatives for teachers for our national CSER Digital Technologies Education Program, which has engaged over 40,000 teachers. Rebecca is passionate about engaging more young people, and particularly women, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) study pathways and careers, and have been involved in research and initiatives to support this endeavour.
Dr. Thushari Atapattu – Adelaide Australia
Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Computer Science Education Research Group.. Thushari’s research focuses on better understanding the latent discourse aspects in large corpora of natural language text, and using this understanding to build computational models that can improve human communication process. Her research interests lie in the areas of text mining, natural language processing, discourse processing, and educational technology. Some of her recent research projects explores;
- Using linguistic fingerprints to combat cyberbullying,
- Modelling language related to mental health using social media data,
- Impact of teachers’ academic discourse in lecture videos for students’ video engagement in massive classrooms (MOOCs),
- Modelling cognitive engagement and measuring new knowledge construction in online teacher professional development MOOCs
- Language and discourse aspects of learners’ with ‘confused’ state in massive open online courses (MOOCs)
Regardless of the discipline, Thushari is passionate about everything in text, discourse, language, cognitive psychology and mind.
Workshop: How to Become a K-12 Cyber Security Education Champion
The events of 2020 have highlighted, more than ever, how important it is to empower our young people as innovators, creators, and problem-solvers, who know how to make their world better.
In this workshop, we will unpack the design thinking process as a problem-solving methodology students can use to develop designed solutions for issues that they care about. We will include practical strategies for developing students’ skills for identifying and defining problems, generating creative ideas for solutions, and producing and testing prototypes. Hear some inspiring examples where primary school students have used Makers Empire together with design thinking to solve problems their families and communities have faced due to Covid-19.
Paula Christophersen – Melbourne, Victoria
Paula is the former Digital Technologies Curriculum Manager, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and is a co-writer of the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum and the ICT general capability. She has presented at state, national and international conferences in the areas of ICT, Digital Technologies and senior secondary IT. Paula is a lifetime member of Digital Learning and Teaching Victoria and the recipient of the Dorothy Hoddinott Medal (2014) for outstanding lifetime achievement, awarded by the Australian Professional Teachers Association. Paula is currently doing some project work for ACARA and the Australian Computing Academy.
Workshop: What, how, do and so?
In essence, Digi Tech is about students learning how to solve suitable real-world problems through computation. A simplified problem-solving model might help students frame their thinking and practices when creating these solutions. This session explores a simple four-word approach that can help structure students’ thinking and prompt actions: WHAT – what is causing the problem and what will solve it? HOW – how will you design the solution? DO – do the coding and manipulating of data to create the solution, SO – so is the solution fit for purpose? The session also consider suitable ways of thinking questions for each stage.
Mandi Dimitriadis – Adelaide Australia
Mandi Dimitriades, Director of Learning at Makers Empire, is a highly respected educator and speaker who works internationally with schools to help teachers develop Design Thinking, embrace maker pedagogy and cover Design & Technology Curriculum.
She is a dynamic speaker, presenter, trainer and facilitator of preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs and is considered an international specialist on Design Thinking and the use of 3D Design and 3D Printing in Education.
She has successfully led large-scale projects for Makers Empire implementing 3D technology and Makers Empire to groups of 200+ schools in Australia, the USA and the Middle East.
Workshop: Developing Empathy with the Design and Technologies Curriculum
The future is the hands of our young people. It has never been more important for our young people to be empowered with skills, dispositions, and desires to improve the world for themselves and others. The Technologies learning area of the Australian Curriculum challenges students to design solutions for preferred futures using design thinking principles and processes. Developing empathy towards others is the key to creating effective solutions for real-world problems. In this hands-on workshop we will explore strategies for promoting empathetic mindsets using the design thinking process and 3D technologies.
Dr. Sarah Baker – Adelaide Australia
Sarah has been in the Department for Education Corporate Office since 2016 as the Advanced Technology Program Manager (funded as part of the Commonwealth Defence Industry Skilling and STEM strategy). The ATP aims to help reduce skills shortages in defence industry by increasing the pool of STEM educated students, informing Australia’s youth about employment opportunities and pathways into defence industry and increase student awareness of defence industry as an employer of choice. With a strong believe in life-long learning, Sarah completed a PhD at Adelaide University in Molecular Biology, has worked on the blue green algae Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii at SA Water and NK-1 (pain) sensors in Neuroscience at Flinders University. She started her teaching career at Valley View Secondary School completing a Master’s in Education (Digital Technologies), followed by a Mathematics/Science Coordinator role before moving into the department and is now completing a Certificate III in Food Technologies (Artisan Cheese making) at TAFESA, Regency (when she can find time to schedule a module in).
Workshop: Defence Industry– Technologically focused opportunities
Working with 24 core and 89 Affiliate/Associate Advanced Technology Program (ATP) schools across all 3 educational sectors to assist development of their STEM programs has been a fantastic way to investigate STEM and Industry links in South Australia. It’s exciting to see the current and future opportunities in Advanced manufacturing, Aerospace, Cyber & Technology, Shipbuilding, Science and Space available locally, nationally and worldwide for our students. Digital and Technology skills are extremely important across all of Defence industry and this presentation will showcase how ATP provides student activities and teacher professional development opportunities to enhance STEM capability, education and enterprise skills as well as enhancing student engagement, participation and enrolment in STEM subjects.
David Chu
David is a Science and Technologies teacher at Emmaus Christian College.
A recipient of EdTechSA’s leading light award from 2019, he has implemented measures in the 7-12 Digital Technologies curriculum to be contemporary, rigorous and enriching, while balancing consistency and diversity. A study of emerging pedagogical and hands-on practices lead him to develop innovative and exemplary ways of teaching Programming and Data Analysis.
David is active in the implementation of the new SACE Digital Technologies subject, and encourages his students to collaboratively use their skills to solve problems in their individual contexts.
Workshop: Skill Strands in Computer Programming, how to teach and differentiate it
This session aims to provide some practical strategies and framework to structure a learning program to introduce computer programming and incrementally increase the interweaving complexity. The framework is adaptable and customisable to enable teachers a flexible teaching repertoire to teach secondary students in different contexts and abilities.
The EdTechSA State Conference 2023 was proudly supported by:
