The Educhange Podcast

With a successful career in industry behind him, Dave is now a Year 9-13 Metal Technology teacher in Whakatane, NZ, at Trident High School. In 2016, he was one of 6 teachers across NZ to be presented with a National Excellence in Teaching award by the Minister for Education. Dave is passionate about sustainability and empowering young people, and he leads brilliant learning with his senior metal technology students who co-design and build solutions for powering the school with renewable energy sources.

Briony Scott is the principal of Wenona College, an independent girls school in North Sydney, Australia. A brilliant thinker and educational leader, Briony has run a number of schools and teams over her distinguished career. She hold a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, a Master of Education and a Doctor of Education, with expertise on girls' education, the utilisation of educational technology, and non-government school funding policy. Briony is a contributor to a range of publications.

Nicole Dyson has lead whole school curriculum change at some of Queensland’s top performing public schools. Passionate about project based learning and student entrepreneurship, she is the founder of Mayd, a curriculum aligned education program for high school students and a co-founder of Future Anything. She also contributes to the Foundation for Young Australians YLab program. Nic now also leads our Future Ready Program at EC, providing teachers with support to deepen engagement and learning.

Lasse is Head of Operations and Partner at HundrED.org. HundrED seeks and shares 100 inspiring innovations in K-12 education worldwide every year through a supportive community.

Lasse has worked in education and career-planning since 2003 and beyond his work with HundrED, he has been building Mentors of Finland, a non-profit organisation that mentors unemployed young people to find a job, free-of-charge, that now reaches 100,000 students monthly.

Professor Frank Oberklaid is an internationally recognised researcher, author, lecturer and paediatrician and speaks to us today on the importance of development and learning in the early years of life.

He is the Foundation Director of the Centre for Community Child Health at The Royal Children’s Hospital – Melbourne, an Honorary Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne, and continues to advise Governments on how communities can provide the best start to life for children.

Welcome back to Season 2! Today we talk with Kaila Colbin. She is the ANZ ambassador for Singularity University, a movement that seeks to use the power of technology to transform society in positive ways. A serial entrepreneur based in Christchurch, she is also the Curator and Licensee for TEDxChristchurch and TEDxScottBase in Antarctica. In this future focused interview, we discuss the implications of exponential technologies on society, and what this means for students, teachers and schools.

Thanks for listening along to the Educhange Podcast this year. We've loved hearing the stories of change from innovators and educators from all across the globe. We're taking a break until mid January but have some brilliant people lined up to share their insights. Have a happy New Year and see you in 2018!  

Professor Lea Waters is a global expert on helping people to flourish. She is the Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology at the Centre for Positive Psychology at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She is also the president of the International Positive Psychology Association and holds affiliate positions at Cambridge University and the University of Michigan. She has been listed in the Financial Times and Westpac Bank 100 Women of Influence. She also developed the Positive Detective Curriculum used by schools all over the world. In 2017, she also published a book on the new science of positive parenting titled The Strength Switch.

We speak with Shane Hancock, Deputy Principal in charge of Prep-Year 2 at Woodcrest State College in Springfield, Queensland. We were lucky enough to meet Shane during the Ipswich Changemaker program this year and he rolled out an awesome program to bring literacy into the community.  Shane has been working in education for 23 years and has taught in many interesting contexts both in Queensland and abroad. He has taught in large urban schools in Brisbane and Ipswich and in remote indigenous communities of Far North Queensland where he was also a curriculum advisor in the Torres Strait, supporting isolated island community teachers with their practice. Overseas, Shane’s taught in Papua New Guinea and Estonia.

He now works in administration as a Deputy Principal for the early phase of learning. Outside of school, Shane owns and manages Queensland’s largest llama farm and is an official Ambassador for Australia Zoo, promoting wildlife conservation and sustainability in the community.

Shane's passionate about literacy and getting reading into the homes of families in his school.

Brett Wood is the foundation principal at Music Industry College, an innovative school in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, Australia. Brett opened MIC in 2010 with only 27 students with the vision to give a specialised authentic learning experience to students passionate about music, helping them to forge a career in the music industry. Today, 82 students study at MIC, with Year 11 and 12 students studying the Australian curriculum whilst also benefiting from some of the best musical industry training possible. He shares his insights from opening a school and how the team at MIC have transformed the learning for this group of young people.