Kurt Yang has extensive experience working in technology, and despite not coming from what you might call a traditional robotics background, his interest grew from somewhat of an unexpected opportunity. Kurt spent many years working in the field of educational robotics, helping schools and students understand the wonders of this crazy field of engineering. According to Kurt, soft skills are just as important as the technical skills when comes to designing and implementing robotics successfully. For those of us frightened of coding...that's good news.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral, providers of Australia's leading school management platform to over 3000 schools.

To find out more, visit the website, https://www.sentral.com.au

Engagement and achievement. Surely we've heard this before. Well, yes, but there is more to say.

Andy Hargreaves is an international writer, researcher and advisor on teaching, leadership and educational change. He's also the founder and director of a Canadian educational centre called CHENINE, which is an acronym that stands for Change, Engagement and Innovation in Education. Andy will be presenting a keynote at the 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Schools summit, with an address titled "Engagement is the new frontier of achievement". He's devoted most of his life to improving education and challenges us again with the notion that engagement is critical to student learning, and that we have an over obsession with performance. To find out how those two fit together and what that means we cover a broad range of topics with some great practical advice.

Cameron Paterson is a highly experienced teacher and has been teaching in independent schools for several decades. Cameron will be participating in the 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit as a discussion panellist, addressing the pressures on the teaching profession in the 2020s. For Cameron, the pressures are real, but he encourages us to remember that teaching is highly rewarding and extremely valuable for our children and society, both now and into the future. Cameron's views are frank and he's passionate about quality teaching and learning. Cameron very kindly offered to spend some time talking with me before the summit about some of the pressures and what we can do to better support teachers.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For more information, visit the website.

https://www.sentral.com.au

Peter Dalmaris is an online educator, engineer and electronics hobbyist. He's been an academic for over 15 years and believes the educational needs of future generations are radically different to those of the 20th century.

In part 2 of my conversation with Peter, we explore what the future might look like for students in an educational environment that champions making, problem solving and discovery. Boldly going where no one has gone before requires some inspiration, so it's no surprise we start by talking about how Star Trek has influenced modern thinking.

Find out more about Peter's work at

https://techexplorations.com/

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral, providers of Australia's leading school management platform to over 3000 schools.

To find out more, visit the website, https://www.sentral.com.au

Peter Dalmaris is an online educator, engineer and electronics hobbyist. He's been an academic for over 15 years and believes the educational needs of future generations are radically different to those of the 20th century. Peter believes that Maker Education is a great way to explore the STEM space. He's passionate about what he does and even has a dog named Einstein. Join me as I talk with Peter about STEM and maker education as an approach to learning.

This is part 1, of a 2 part interview.

Find out more about Peter's work at

https://techexplorations.com/

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral, providers of Australia's leading school management platform to over 3000 schools.

To find out more, visit the website, https://www.sentral.com.au

WIN 1 of 3 Samsung Galaxy Tablets

As it's the end of the year, we're feeling particularly generous here at Sentral.

We're giving away not one, not two, but three Samsung Galaxy tablets!

Start your new year with the latest stylish tech by following us on

Facebook and Linked In. Simple!

Simply click on our official Sentral Facebook and/or LinkedIn pages and like/follow us to be entered into the draw.

facebook.com/sentraledu

linkedin.com/company/sentral

Promotion period runs from 24 November 2020 to 8 December 2020.

*TERMS AND CONDITIONS

By participating in the promotion, Participants represent that they understand and agree to be bound to the Promotion Terms, as they may be modified, and the decisions of Sentral which are final and binding. Promotion period runs from 24 November 2020 to 8 December 2020 • Prizes are not transferable for cash • Any FBT applicable is the responsibility of the prize recipient • No Correspondence will be entered into regarding the drawing of Winners and Sentral's decision is final • Prizes will be drawn on 10 December 2020 and Winners notified by 11 December 2020 • Sentral reserves the rights to cancel or amend the promotion at any stage if deemed necessary in their opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of their control.

Life as a senior school student can be challenging at the best of times. You might be in a great school and have great teachers, but still need that extra bit of help to succeed in your studies. For students at Forest High School, a new initiative called the Trailblazer program was launched to provide that help. It's a peer tutoring and mentoring program that was created for senior students where the Trailblazers are recently graduated students themselves. Zali van der Veer was one of those graduates and now helps others on their path to high school success.

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

www.sentral.com.au

Celebrating Episode 50.

Helen Murphy is the Assistant Principal at Vermont Primary School in Victoria. About 7 years ago, the school realised that it was time to look for a new reporting system. What they found in Sentral was a whole lot more, and the school quickly began to expand its use of Sentral and its capabilities. 7 years down the track it seems like a long way from the manual systems they'd been using, and it's very clear that there's no turning back. In my conversation today, Helen talks about the many benefits and positive changes that have taken place right across the school community since moving to Sentral back in 2014. As Helen describes, the staff were very quick to embrace it.

Long-time Sentral veteran David Summerville has over 20 years configuring and managing Sentral. The Dashboard is a relatively simple part of the platform, yet David explains the essential aspects of successful Dashboard setup and use within a school. David offers practical advice for all schools, whether new to Sentral or experienced.

Nathan Richards is a Microsoft Innovative Educator, and spends his time helping teachers and students get the most out of Microsoft Teams. It's a way of looking at managing and teaching classes that takes a different view to the traditional LMS...or learning management system. In fact, for Nathan, and Brisbane Catholic Education the view is very different...as they don't actually use a traditional LMS. And as Nathan describes, there are indeed many benefits and advantages of using the Teams environment to bring classes together to achieve better learning outcomes.