Leading a Digital School Conference 2019

Haeata Community Campus is a new school a new school set up in post earthquake Christchurch, born out of the closure of four schools in a deprived urban area, is challenging every status quo that exists in our normal thinking about schools.
Haeata is a Year 1-13 urban school with approximately 1000 students.
Our curriculum is built around a dispositional foundation where students and teachers focus first and foremost on building their dispositions from within and then on building on these for all other learning. Then other learning is developed around on an inquiry learning approach for all students from 5 through to 18 years and how that looks developmentally appropriate at different stages of the schooling experience.
Collaborative practice is a feature for both teachers and students with up to 25 teachers working together to support the programs of learning for groups of up to 400 students.
In Session One we will share our journey with you and illustrate how we are challenging the status quo in schools and in education in the way we deliver and construct learning. There will be opportunities for you to spend some time comparing and contrasting your school’s learning design and delivery and create an action plan for what you could go back to school and implement differently. 
This hands-on session is suitable for: K-12

Being future-focused, envisioning exciting possibilities and enlisting others in a shared view of the future is an important lever for change. But how do you make this vision compelling? What language do you use? What are the key strategies in ensuring its success?
During this session, Adrian will share the process he used in creating a shared vision for the future of learning at The Geelong College and explain how it has ensured a full alignment in purpose and language. He will explain how a shared language of what you value in learning builds culture and gives everyone a chance to rethink learning in new, novel and exciting ways.
Adrian will discuss empowered and innovative learning cultures and how he thinks it is necessary to bring teachers and students together around a focal point for collaboration. Participants will leave with tools and frameworks that can be immediately put to use in their own contexts.

If you’ve clicked on a QR Code or if you joined in the Pokemon Go craze then you’ve involved yourself with another ‘reality’, one virtual, the other augmented. Whilst higher-end applications of both may be beyond most schools there are some very cost effective entry options available too. In this session, we will explore some virtual and augmented reality options that can be used in your science classroom both for consumption of content as well as ones that can be used for sharing learning and understandings.

This hands-on workshop is suitable for: Years 4 to 12

As teachers, we are always looking for the hook to draw kids in and make the learning real. Engagement through game-based learning and immersion through simulation are now readily available in many different digital variants. I first presented 6 years ago when my Minecraft journey was very young. Since 2013, I have learnt so much, created many educational environments and crossed nearly every curriculum area and age group. We live in an age where kids are coming to school ready to learn digitally. In my session, I will show you how I use Minecraft, what the kids do and how it's not all about one program. Please join me to see how an idea and some imagination can make every kid want to be in your class next year.

See Minecraft in my school featured on Nine News - https://www.facebook.com/9NewsAdelaide/videos/340609863385789/

This session is suitable for: K-12

Education in the age of digital disruption creates both challenge and opportunity. Reports cite statistics of jobs that will no longer exist in the next twenty years whilst the exponential march of progress gives us glimpses of the jobs that haven’t yet been invented. Whilst education is much more than just preparation for a life of work, schools at the leading edge are now grappling with how to provide opportunities for students and teachers to engage with new and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles, Blockchain and Brain-Machine Interfaces, struggling with the consequences of real-time language translation and attempting to cultivate the right pedagogical conditions for students to develop the attitudes, morals, ethics, dispositions and skills needed for a life of learning.

In this keynote, Adrian will explore how organizations can advance a culture of innovation in a time that is inherently more complex; where the educational discourse has never been more contested; and how as leaders we can make smarter decisions when we don’t have all the facts. He will argue that educational leaders need to think about digital transformation from a systems perspective and build an organizational culture that encourages ubiquitous leadership in a networked web of organized chaos. By sharing practical examples, experiences and profoundly moving personal stories, Adrian will convince you that in order to lead a digital school, we may in fact need to focus less on technology, and more on what makes us human.

Technology provides teachers with an influential way to engage students, inform and differentiate instruction, document assessment and empower students to own their learning. However, if we want technology to be a transformative force in our schools, you have to start with the “why?”
While technology has its place, we first and foremost want to make sure we’re prioritizing effective pedagogy and not simply masking bad practice” (Vargas, 2009)

In this keynote, we aim to share our journey on how through the use of design thinking methodologies we have developed blended learning courses which support quality cohesive teaching and learning within a blended learning landscape across multiple campuses within Haileybury. We aim to look at what are the key aims of a blended learning model and how this differs across the different ages and stages of schooling.

In July 2017 Curtin University announced the establishment of the Learning Futures Network to acknowledge the growing interest by K-12 schools to have a more meaningful and engaged relationship with Curtin University and other partners focussed on learning, education, arts and culture, the future of work, global sustainable development, science and technology. Since then it has grown to a network of over 150 organisations.
The Learning Futures Network aims to create the social infrastructure, resources and context to develop more authentic and future-aware processes to support transformation and collaboration across student learning, school and staff development, and connections between and across higher education, industry, cultural and community organisations and the public sector. The Learning Futures Network also provides an avenue for schools to learn about the expectations of higher education, alternative entry pathways, Direct Entry Portfolio processes, teacher professional learning and postgraduate opportunities, and to be more proactive in collaborative engagements with higher education.
Students often struggle to find connections with topics and approaches provided in regular classroom settings – the Learning Futures Network provides a wider range of interest areas and more challenging opportunities to learn in novel, connected and global ways:
A seven-year-long study by Judith Harackiewicz showed that interest predicted long term learning outcomes more accurately than students’ initial grades in a course. In general, writes Harackiewicz, “research has found that interest is a more powerful predictor of future choices than prior achievement or demographic variables.” The research of Paul Silvia suggests that to be interesting, material must be novel, complex, and comprehensible. [from Fortifying Interest in a Distracted World].
Schools in the network can benefit through:
– Co-developing engaging workshops for staff and students to create new products and to deepen school partnerships;
– Increased opportunities for collaboration with other schools, industry partners, community and cultural partners;
– Primary schools can connect with, and align their strategies more relevantly with high schools;
– Regional schools can begin to bridge the opportunity gaps and become more connected with others.
This recent study makes several recommendations about school partnerships and finds positive outcomes in many areas:
The Australian Industry Group. (2017). Strengthening School-Industry STEM Skills Partnerships.
Melbourne, Australia: Office of the Chief Scientist.

This session is suitable for: K-12

Sarah Chapman was awarded a Barbara Cail Fellowship in 2016. The Barbara Cail STEM Fellowship aimed to research and identify effective and innovative ways for promoting participation of young people, particularly girls, in STEM fields during their education and subsequent careers.

The research included visits to schools, businesses, universities, government departments and communities all over the world, to find out what other OECD countries were doing that was advancing cultures of innovation and having an impact on the rate of engagement in STEM education.

This presentation will focus on best practice for engaging and sustain young people in STEM, in particular girls. This will include:

* understanding an effective STEM ecosystem & the importance of each stakeholder
* embedding key strategies to engage girls authentically in STEM
* exploring the key role partnerships play in empowering students in STEM

This session is suitable for: K-12

Breakout EDU is an exciting way to get your students actively engaged in their learning. Based on the concept of Escape Rooms, students need to use critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity to break into a locked box. In this closing session, you will experience what it is like to be part of a Breakout EDU class as you and your fellow delegates race the clock to break in!

This hands-on workshop is suitable for: K-12