Sentral Station

If you're in education, it's the season for conferences, and there aren't many bigger than EduTECH in Sydney. This year there were over 250 exhibitors and over 20 seminars on the latest in educational technology. It gave me a chance to step out of the studio and meet some people to chat about some of the latest developments. So, in case you couldn't make it, here's part 2 of our series of highlights from EduTECH 2019.

Villy Outzen, from Lego Education

http://legoeducation.com

Lindsay Moss, from Startime Studios

http://startime.com.au

Jim Russell, from Hearing Loop

http://hearingloop.com.au

Giulio Ricci, from WASP Printers

http://deltawasp.com.au

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For information on proven, web-based school management software for your school, visit

http://sentral.com.au

Greg Robinson is the Head of Students, Senior School at Hunter Valley Grammar School in the NSW Hunter Valley region. He heads up a team of people including Heads of House, Heads of Year and also the deputy principal as they oversee and manage issues of Wellbeing in the school. As you might imagine, this is quite a task for a school of around 1100 students, particularly in a world that is changing rapidly with ever increasing demands and stresses on young people. I spoke with Greg about what Wellbeing encompasses these days, and how its changed from when we were both at school back in the 70s and 80s. Naturally, technology and social media feature in this discussion, but so do some great interventions like mindfulness, a time to set the devices aside, and the chance to be present in the moment. I visited Greg on campus, where on arrival I couldn't help noticing a sculpture of giant, brightly coloured pencils displaying the school's values for life, ...which seemed like a great place to start our discussion.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For more information on proven web-based school management software solutions for your school, visit http://www.sentral.com.au

If you're in education, it's the season for conferences, and there aren't many bigger than EduTECH in Sydney. This year there were over 250 exhibitors and over 20 seminars on the latest in educational technology. It was quite a bewildering display, but it gave me a chance to step out of the studio and meet some people to chat about some of the latest developments. So, in case you couldn't make it, here's part 1 of our series of highlights from EduTECH 2019.

In this episode...

Jenny Atkinson, from Littlescribe

http://littlescribe.com

Sam Kingsley, from the Brainary

http://thebrainary.com

Lydia Sprague, from 2simple

http://2simple.com.au

Vlad Tetelbaum, from SWIVL

http://swivl.com

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For information on proven web-based school management solutions, visit

http://sentral.com.au

Peter Barnes is an ex-banker turned learning innovator, based in Sydney. About 20 years ago he decided to leave the banking world and explore the emerging field of educational neuroscience. It saw him navigate turbulent times when it came to delivering educational neuroscience software. But times have changed. The computers and science are both better, and making significant differences to the lives of students with learning difficulties. It's a good example of how the struggle with technology sometimes really is worth it. I caught up with Peter in his home office, over a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

For more information on educational neuroscience, visit http://www.learnfasthq.com

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For more information on proved web-based school management solutions, visit http://www.sentral.com.au

Music as a subject in schools is one of those subjects where you'd think that you had plenty of opportunity to do creative and different things, in the pursuit of improving teaching practice. And that's just what Brad Fuller is exploring in his PhD research, on teaching music in secondary education.

He's a music teacher at Northern Beaches Christian School, in Sydney, and a PhD candidate at Sydney University. He's come up with an interesting approach which you could almost consider as some kind of a tagline, which is...Teach like you're a musician. It's led him to come up with various approaches which might at first seem a little, well, unconventional, ... but the feedback from students suggests that this is certainly worth exploring. When I asked him to explain the idea, the conversation started by considering... the Ken Burns effect.

This podcast is brought to you by Sentral. For more information about proven web-based school management software, visit http://www.sentral.com.au

Pammie Chatterton is the assistant principal at Picnic Point public school in Sydney's south west. About half way through 2018, the school began using the Sentral parent portal and app, and it's fair to say that the impact has been very positive. There was massive adoption of the portal by the parent body, and an increase in the speed and efficiency of outbound communication from the school. But as Pammie describes, there's more to communication than just new technology. It involves shifting perceptions on what communication means, and reflection on the changing responsibilities in a world where messages are so easily sent.

To find out more about Sentral Parent Portal, visit http://www.sentral.com.au

It's often said that necessity is the mother of invention, and that's certainly the case for Tim Bowman, founder of Class Creator. As part of its mission to continuously drive innovation in education, Sentral teamed up with Tim to create Class Builder; a software program that builds classes for schools using some clever technology that saves time, and reduces hassle and conflict. But it's the story behind the product that makes it so powerful. Over a decade in classrooms has given Tim unique insight into what makes a good class and how to use technology to keep improving the class building process. It wasn't always a straightforward run for Tim, and he certainly saw his fair share of challenging classroom situations. I started by asking Tim to share a few of those moments that eventually led him to create a product that now helps teachers manage hundreds of thousands of students.

To find out more about ClassBuilder, visit http://sentral.com.au