This year’s Inspire Greatness Conference was an incredible learning event held in Sydney, Australia on October 11 and 12
https://indd.adobe.com/view/ef273d31-540c-4b9d-8042-b0ab3146ce12
The keynotes provided by Dr Phil Lambert, Dr Kristy Goodwin, Eddie Woo, and Dr Bronwyn Stuckey were evaluated extremely highly by the teachers who appreciated having the opportunity “to listen to such experts”. Their presentations can be found HERE
The SMART Executive led a gamification session sharing SMART’s global research http://go.smarttech.com/research into the 22 capabilities required by schools to use technology effectively to impact on learning outcomes. Conference participants were encouraged to visit the research site to access personalized profile for their school. Giancarlo Brotto SMART’s Global Education Strategist also presented to the group his global perspective on education and the importance of Social Emotional Learning for our students in the new world of work.
One of the outstanding moments of the conference was the presentation from the two St Aiden’s students, winners of the Conrad Challenge https://www.conradchallenge.org/ The students shared the “pitch” they had presented at the Kennedy Centre regarding an App they are developing to support people with Autism connect with potential employers. Their presentation motivated many teachers at the conference to inspire their own students to compete in this year’s challenge.
The conference hosted at Abbotsleigh School for Girls was FREE for teachers and represented 12 hours of NESA accredited professional development. Abbotsleigh was among three Australian schools to be nominated as SMART Exemplary Schools. Together with Curl Curl North Public School and Sheldon College they were honored at the conference.
Jeanine Kobylinski, an ICT Integrator at Abbotsleigh is a SMART Exemplary Educator who led presentations at the conference and represented Australia at the Calgary Global SEE Summit. All the SEES also attended the conference were presented with certificates, including Meaghan Parsons from Sheldon College Queensland, Rebecca Boyle, and Gretel Watson from Curl Curl North PS, Vicky Binedell from New Zealand.
The hundreds of teachers who attended were able to learn from the Keynotes attend Think sessions and Training sessions where they were shown how to use EdTech in the classroom or how to introduce ed tech to their schools effectively. The conference provided training for teachers in SMART Learning Suite and new products such as Teamworks were demonstrated.
In our Show Case area our friends from, UNSWGlobal, Life Education, Civica, 3D Anamatologica, Sydney Opera House and EdTechs shared their ideas and services for schools with teachers in the session breaks.
In parallel to the conference, we also hosted an Executive RoundTable attended by many of our keynotes and presenters and the result of their deliberations will be posted here.
The conference scribe Brett Bower captured the essence of the presentations on the SMART Board and the teachers were able to download the cartoons using SMART Kapp App.
Watch the event recap video here.
[embed]https://youtu.be/JfUC4N_nZx0[/embed]
We look forward to seeing you there next year!
About the Author:
Sue Beveridge has been an educator for more than 32 years with a strong focus on quality teaching and learning and the use of ICT. She has served in public education as a Head Teacher of English, Curriculum Advisor for English K-12 and Literacy, Chief Education Officer Professional Development, Assistant Director at the Centre for Learning Innovation and Senior Executive in the Connected Classrooms Program.
As a Senior Officer in the Nation’s largest Department of Education with an enrolment of over 1.2 million students she has led change strategies for key educational transformations, including the introduction of the NSW Literacy Strategy (placing literacy as a key focus for all teachers), a new Higher School Certificate ( introducing standards-based assessment), the Priority Action Schools Program (focussing on Quality teaching in low SES schools) , TaLe (introducing the Department’s Teaching and Learning Portal with more than 22,000 digital resources) and as the Education Outcomes Business Change Manager for the Connected Classrooms Program. The Connected Classrooms Program was $158 million Government initiative to connect 2250 NSW public schools via interactive whiteboards, video conferencing and data collaboration and social networking tools.
She is also a Member of the Australian College of Educators (MACE) and the Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL). She has written widely, led educational research and presented at conferences both internationally and nationally including the British Education Research Association ( BERA), AARE, Australian Council for Education Research, ACE Digital Fair 2009, the ACEL Hosting and Harvesting Conference 2010, International Middle Years Conference 2009, and CoSN International Conference Washington 2010, ITech Sydney 2016.
She is currently the Education Advisor for SMART Technologies ANZ, working with the Global Education Strategist, Director APAC and National Manager to inform the pedagogical Roadmap for SMART and the effective use of SMART technologies in the classroom.
