Sentral Station

Gihan Perera is a leadership and business futurist and has worked with organisations and leaders in Australia and internationally, for over 25 years. He's also just released his new book "Disrupted: Leading the change through crisis, recovery and growth" Gihan will be presenting at the 2021 Western Australian Secondary School Executives Association Conference on the challenging topics of leadership and high-performance teams. Always relevant, and maybe now more than ever as the world deals with all manner of crises. In fact, according to Gihan, a crisis doesn't create leaders - it amplifies them.

For more information about Gihan Perera, visit https://gihanperera.com

Find Gihan's new book, Disrupted on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0973Z7F5C/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_53TWAXKJN973C7GK4Q4P

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit https://sentral.com.au

STEM education is still a challenge, and probably will be for a while. Some schools have got strong STEM programs, whilst others have technology programs that do STEM-like projects, and there's everything else in between. My guests today are Malyn Mawby and Nikki Shires, both STEM educators and advocates for girls' involvement in STEM education. In this discussion we cover just how to sell the value proposition of STEM to young people and what kinds of innovative approaches are needed to keep the vision alive, realistic and relevant for an unknown future. I started by asking them how they got there, and why we still think about STEM as a thing.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit the website.

https://www.sentral.com.au

Part 2 with Jason Potts, RMIT

Where does Bitcoin come from? Should young people today be concerned about the security issues now and into the future?

Jason Potts is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at RMIT University and Co-director of the Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT. He'll also be a keynote speaker at the 2021 AIS NSW ICT Management and Leadership Conference. If the words 'blockchain' and 'bitcoin' cause you some confusion, then you're not alone. And that's because it's about more than just currency, or money. These are emerging technologies which are likely to change the way we think about storing and exchanging value forever. And for the school students of today, they're growing up into a world which is seeing unprecedented innovation in this space. At the same time, subjects at school like Economics and Business Studies are enormously popular. What does all this mean for those students as they pursue those subjects?

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit the website,

https://www.sentral.com.au

Part 1

Jason Potts is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at RMIT University and Co-director of the Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT. He'll also be a keynote speaker at the 2021 AIS NSW ICT Management and Leadership Conference. If the words 'blockchain' and 'bitcoin' cause you some confusion, then you're not alone. And that's because it's about more than just currency, or money. These are emerging technologies which are likely to change the way we think about storing and exchanging value forever. And for the school students of today, they're growing up into a world which is seeing unprecedented innovation in this space. At the same time, subjects at school like Economics and Business Studies are enormously popular. What does all this mean for those students as they pursue those subjects? Today's discussion is about something complex, exciting, highly innovative and it's capturing attention the world over. And because of that, we're going to bring it to you in two parts.

I started by asking Jason...just how does a young person today begin to make sense of a technology like this, particularly when it's not regulated.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit

https://www.sentral.com.au

Jordana Hunter is a researcher at the Grattan Institute, an Australian public policy think tank based in Melbourne. She's about to embark on research which addresses the age old issue of 'time' in education. Do teachers have enough time for the core part of their jobs, that is, teaching and learning? And is the profession sustainable, given the increasing demands placed on teachers and schools to teach a whole lot of other things....like general capabilities, technology, citizenship, health, and the list goes on. Jordana presented at the 2021 Age Schools summit in Melbourne on the complex issue of time as a precious resource for teachers. I caught up with Jordana before the summit to get deeper insight into this important research.

Have your say in the Grattan Institute Survey!

https://mailchi.mp/grattan/education-survey

The Grattan Institute is currently investigating how teachers can find enough time in the week to focus on the types of high impact teaching activities that can really make a difference to student learning - like planning great lessons, helping struggling students, providing feedback and improving professional practice.

Grattan researchers want to hear from teachers and school leaders about how they currently spend their time at school and the changes that might be possible to find more time for these high impact activities.

Grattan will shortly launch a survey of teachers and school leaders so that you can let them know what you think. You can sign up to receive a link to the survey by going to: https://mailchi.mp/grattan/education-survey

Jen Buchanan is an educator with truly global experience. Having worked in a variety of contexts, she brings a wealth of insight when it comes to helping schools consider what the future of education might look like. It can be a confronting process. As Jen explains from her own experience, things like having to unlearn, or let things go, can often be a part of making the next steps towards a more innovative, or high impact future. Our conversation starts by taking a brief look back at Jen's time at Green School, in Bali, where the direction of the learning programme is clear: and that is, towards an education revolution.

Gail McHardy is the executive officer for Parents Victoria, a statewide democratic organisation representing parents of students in Victorian Government schools. Gail will be a panellist at the 2021 Age Schools Summit in Melbourne Australia, where she'll be engaging on a variety of themes around technology in education. In this discussion, we'll cover a range of issues including equity with respect to technology, and the amount of input that parents get in the greater technology debate. We'll also look at some of the challenges surrounding technology, particularly with respect to wellbeing and what problems are emerging in that space. Gail is passionate about the work of Parents Victoria and this assistance it provides to families.

To find out more, visit Parents Victoria on the web, at https://www.parentsvictoria.asn.au.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit the website,

https://www.sentral.com.au

If the idea of a 'hackathon' gives you the impression of blokey tech nerds huddled around computers in basements eating pizza and drinking beer...you'd be fairly close to describing reality. At least that's what Sarah Moran found out when she was invited to one some years ago. Apart from the fact that there weren't many women at these events, it was hard for Sarah to see why anyone would attend one of these events. This led her to reimagine what a hackathon could be like... bring the concept into the light and ultimately create what is now known as Girl Geek Academy. Its purpose is clear...to fix the hole in the tech pipeline by teaching women, girls and families across a range of different industries including games, startups, 3D printing, making, design, tech, drones, space and aviation. In this discussion you'll hear Sarah describe her journey, and how Girl Geek Academy is helping young women achieve and thrive in the tech space. If you're looking for inspiration and enthusiasm, you'll find it here. Sarah's got loads of it.

Connect with Girl Geek Academy

Girl Geek Academy

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. To find out more, visit

https://www.sentral.com.au

Monique Dalli is a Victorian Secondary Teacher of Design and Technologies, Author and Designer.

Monique will be a discussion panellist at the 2021 Age Schools Summit in Melbourne Australia, where she'll be engaging on a variety of themes around technology in education. In particular, there'll be robust discussion about mentoring, professional development, initial teacher education programs and the innovative nature of the Technologies curriculum.

It's a complex subject area given its breadth and the variety of skills needed to teach it. In this conversation, we dive into some of those complexities and talk about ways to address what appears to be a shortage, or crisis, in the supply of new technology teachers in Australia. There's a lot of great work going on, but more needs to be done to ensure a sustainable supply of teachers. And for more information on that work, make sure you check out the information and links in the show notes to this episode. I started by asking Monique to clarify what the subject area looks like today and why it's different from the past.

Monique Dalli

Director of Professional Learning || Caroline Chisholm Catholic College, Braybrook

President DATTA Australia || Design and Technologies Teacher Association

Casual Academic (Teaching) - School of Education || Southern Cross University

Twitter link for contact: https://twitter.com/1moniqued

For more information...

DATTA Australia is the National teacher Association made up of committee of state representatives that are collectively working on the professional development needs of teachers through state and national conferences, ways to support the teacher shortage as a well as being active in the ACARA curriculum advisory panels.

In 2019 DATTA Australia surveyed schools to try and get a better understanding of the supply-demand-need, from the 3000 respondents, ninety-six percent of the schools surveyed reported experiencing difficulty in finding qualified Technologies teachers. https://dattaaustralia.com/technologies-teacher-shortage-media-statement/

Is it a crisis?

https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/tech-education-could-be-unsustainable-by-2025--report/275085

Sending or receiving a txt. It used to be special, now life seems impossible without it.

But what about in the school environment?

My guest today is David Summerville. He's been on the show a few times and returns today to discuss what most of us might just take for granted these days; sms messaging. David describes the transformation that took place in handling communications at Callaghan College in Newcastle, and how the technology continues to benefit the school today. It's become an essential part of the mix of communication methods the school uses, has freed up all kinds of resources and creates significant cost savings for the college.