I was reading over the topics our keynotes will be presenting at this year’s EdTechSa conference and when I got to Martin Levins keynote: “What have we learned?” my mind drifted off into the song “Everything Old is New Again.”
I am not saying that Martin’s keynote, or Martin himself for that matter, is old but rather that the technology journey seems to have made a complete journey back to where we started. With his experiences ranging from The BBS, Apple II and the PC Jnr through Microbees, Commodore 64s and ZX80s and on to current cutting edge technology Martin is in the perfect position to look at some lessons that can be learned from this merry go round that has brought us full circle back to coding.
What Martin will help us explore is the most important question “What have we learned?”
Martin will also be involved in facilitating a workshop which will use prompts from the SA Year 3 curriculum to look at Technology in context, using the programming language Scratch. Once participants get a grip on the Scratch environment, they will look at using MakeyMakeys to make even more fun stuff. No programming knowledge assumed, participants will need a laptop, with Scratch loaded (scratch.mit.edu) to get the most out of this workshop.
Martin has taught science, design, and technology, and Computing Science for over 40 years. He has a love for empowerment through learning that has taken him into primary, secondary and tertiary classrooms. He is also involved in the development and delivery of training on the use of technology in education for teachers and educational leaders at schools and conferences around Australia and overseas.
Martin is co-author of the ACER best seller “Bring Your Own Technology”, is Director of ICTENSW (the peak NSW state body for teachers who use technology) and President of the National body, the Australian Council for Computing in Education.
I am sure that while Martin will be revisiting some of the old his insights into the lessons learned will ensure that we are well and truly focussed on the new.