PROGRAM Information by Speakers, Judges and Panel Members

** Please note the speakers, judges and panel members are in alphabetical order, not program order.

Speakers

Arthur, Dr. Evan

Dr. Evan Arthur - Group Manager, Digital Education Group, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Australia

Keynote 1: The Digital Education Revolution

Dr Arthur will provide an update on the implementation of the Australian Government's Digital Education Revolution. In particular he will describe the Government's approach to delivering on its commitment to provide high quality curriculum materials based on the National Curriculum and collaborative tools to ensure teachers are able to make effective use of curriculum materials. The Government has allocated $32.6 million dollars over the next two years for these purposes.

Short Biography

Dr Evan Arthur was educated at Newcastle (Australia) and Cambridge (UK) Universities. His doctoral thesis was in the area of Stoic Philosophy.

Dr Arthur has been employed as a university tutor and as a public servant. He joined the Australian Public Service in 1981. He has worked in the (then) Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and in the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). He has worked on issues such as refugee policy, labour market programs, teacher professional development, research and innovation policy, recognition of overseas qualifications and the use of information technology in education. His current position is Group Manager, Schools Teaching, Students and Digital Education Revolution Group in DEEWR.

Dr Arthur is currently responsible for coordinating Australian Government involvement in issues associated with the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education and managing the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution. He is the Chair of the principal cross sectoral body advising Commonwealth, State and Territory Ministers on issues associated with the use of ICT in education, the Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee.

Black, Greg

Greg Black - Chief Executive Officer, Education.au

Keynote 2: Emerging Education Technology

This presentation will cover evidence on how educators are using technology, data on the impacts on learning and a working hypothesis on sustaining innovation in educational institutions. This will be followed by a description of progress to date on education.au's current investigations on the current and future impacts of emerging technologies; the establishment of on-line 'think tankettes'; a national symposium and; production of an annual report card on emerging technologies.

Short Biography

At the beginning of 2007 Greg Black became the Chief Executive Officer of education.au limited, a ministerial company that provides leadership and direction in the development, enhancement, standards and use of online distributed and managed national education network services. His current work involves oversight of a number of major national education and business projects.

Greg was a Chief Executive in the Western Australian and South Australian governments from 1987-2004. He has been the Director General of Education in Western Australia and head of the Department of Further Education Employment Science and Technology in South Australia. His Board memberships have included that of education.au, Curriculum Corporation, Australian University Quality Authority, state Higher Education Councils, Australian Education Systems Officials Committee and Australian National Training Authority CEOs. Greg has also advised governments in the UK and Malaysia on their education and training systems.

Greg's most recent work, prior to joining education.au has involved futures thinking in education, business strategies and leadership development, and international education and executive coaching.

Blinco, Kerry

Kerry Blinco - e-Framework and Standards Manager, Link Affiliates

Short Biography

Kerry participates in a range of national and international technical standards activities with Standards Australia, IMS, ISO, NISO, OASIS and the IEEE LTSC and in her current role works closely with the international e-Framework for Education and Research partnership. Kerry's particular focus is on frameworks and architectural models, and the intersection between research, education and information environments. She has been involved in a number of national and international collaborative projects.

Croger, Peter

Peter Croger - Managing Director, Croger Associates Pty Ltd

Short Biography

Peter Croger is the principal of Croger Associates, a consulting firm that specialises in policies, strategies and management for ICT in education and government. His clients include many government and education organisations throughout Australia and internationally. Peter's previous roles have included being a government executive, a CIO and an ICT practitioner.

Huxley, Mark

Mark Huxley - Manager, Learning Innovation, ACT Department of Education and Training

Short Biography

Mark currently works for the ACT Department of Education as the Manager of Learning Innovation. He is responsible for promoting the sustainable delivery and integration of ICT to all ACT Government Schools P-12. Mark has an extensive background in school education. Living in Canberra has provided Mark with a unique opportunity to work across a variety of educational contexts including school, Territory and Commonwealth levels.

As an executive teacher at Stromlo High School responsible for whole school integration of ICT, Mark successfully lead the school to a position of national recognition by the MCEETYA ICT Schools Taskforce as a leading ICT school in 2004. Mark then moved on to work as the ACT Department of Education Contact Liaison Officer for The Le@rning Federation. Mark has worked extensively with teachers in the design and delivery of professional learning programs incorporating ICT across all subject areas P-12.

Mark accepted an opportunity to work in the then Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training (DEST) as the Director (A/G) of IT New Policy team where he focussed on issues of national need including school bandwidth, ICT access devices and their impact on teaching and learning and the ICT capabilities of school educators.

Mark then returned to ACTDET as the Manager of Learning Innovation where he is currently grappling with implementing a wide range of local and national ICT policy initiatives and how best to align these to meet the needs of students and teachers in the contemporary classroom.

James, Professor Richard

Professor Richard James - Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE), University of Melbourne

Short Biography

Richard James' research interests include access and participation, the quality of the student experience, and students' post-compulsory education choices. He has authored numerous research reports of national significance in Australian higher education as well as over 50 articles and chapters. His recent work has included an influential national study of university student finances, major contributions to the development of policy for Indigenous higher education and key advisory roles to government and universities on enhancing teaching and learning in higher education. Within the University of Melbourne he plays a key role in curriculum transformation and access programs.

McEwen, Celina

Celina McEwen - Project Officer, IMS Technology-Enabled Flexible Learning (TEFL) Project, Griffith Institute for Higher Education

Technology-Enabled Flexible Learning (TEFL) - Developing Best Practices for Prospective and New Student Introduction to E-Learning

The IMS Technology-Enabled Flexible Learning (TEFL) project aims to develop a framework for students' introduction to online learning, addressing issues of completion, retention, and persistence.

Higher education students' first set of experiences with online learning can be either a barrier to retention or contribute to the likelihood of persistence. As online courses and programs continue to grow at exponential rates and provide global reach, students' levels of participation, completion, retention and persistence are areas of great concern to faculty staff and administrators.

Recent thinking and practice supports the fact that one of the key factors in improving students' capacity to complete their online courses is to gain a better understanding of students' and institutions of higher education's expectations about participating in online education courses and programs as well as how to effectively use the range of information and communication technologies (ICT) available.

An initial review of evidence based surveys taken from the fields of distance education, online learning experiences, student engagement with online learning and the first year experience has highlighted eight areas of best practice:

  1. Assessment and Communication of Expectations
  2. Recruitment and Advisement
  3. Learning Design and Organization
  4. Functional Technology
  5. Student Technology Literacy
  6. Learning Community
  7. Faculty Development and Support
  8. Student Support Services

While the main aim of this project is the development of a framework for student introduction into online learning that will support the development of recommendations for the establishment of international best practice standards for first year university students who are being introduced to online learning, the findings from this research project are also relevant to blended and other e-learning contexts.

Short Biography

Celina McEwen is a project officer with the Griffith Institute of Higher Education, Griffith University. Her research interests include technology-enabled learning, community adult education and the use of participatory and creative strategies to foster critical and deep learning in people with negative learning experiences. Ms McEwen is also a former research fellow/lecturer for the Centre for Popular Education and the faculty of Education at the University of Technology, Sydney. She has recently completed her thesis at the University of Sydney on the social and political role of community-arts based practices in Australia, for which she has been awarded a Doctorate in Philosophy. Her prior work experiences include 10years as an information manager, specialising in corporate library technical services, records management and database management.

McInerny, Carmel

Carmel McInerny - Manager, GetWise Project, National Library of Australia

The OLE Project, newspaper digitisation and other innovations from the National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia is home to over 9 million items documenting Australia's history and culture. This presentation will describe selected initiatives underway this year to provide access to these collections both online and to those able to visit Canberra. We will describe how we're progressively digitising Australia's major historic newspapers and employing Web 2.0 technology to enable unprecedented user interactivity.

We'll also describe initiatives dealing with audio delivery of oral history interviews, digitisation of pictures and new ways to find and use maps in our collection. Such initiatives rely on well designed underlying systems. We will detail the OLE Project where we have joined with US libraries to assess college and university interest in next generation, open source library systems.

Short Biography

Carmel McInerny currently manages a workflow analysis project in the National Library. She is also the Library's representative on the international Open Library Environment (OLE) Project investigating open source library management alternatives. She formerly held team leader roles in the reader services area, including manager of the online chat reference service, AskNow. Her background is in libraries, archives and museum management with historical research also part of the mix.

Munro, lan

Ian Munro - Senior Adviser, Student Management Systems, New Zealand Ministry of Education (NZ MoE)

Student Management Systems - The dynamics of the market equilibrium

In 2003 the New Zealand Ministry of Education introduced a standards based accreditation framework for software providers (vendors) of Student Management Systems (SMS) in the compulsory education sector.

Short Biography

Ian is currently a senior adviser with the Ministry of Education interoperability section. He came into the Ministry six years ago (from private business) as a project manager to set up the accreditation framework.

Ian has had 20 years experience as a teacher and senior administrator in secondary schools in New Zealand and Singapore. He also had a one-year secondment into the Ministry of Education to provide advice on the use of computers in school administration.

Nicholas, Dr. Nick

Dr. Nick Nicholas - Business Analyst, Link Affiliates

XRI

This presentation considers the role of standards and the objectives of the main systems of intellectual property protection, in particular, copyright and patents. It considers the ways in which conflicts can arise between standards and intellectual property and the responses that have been developed by standard setting organisations and others to reduce or remove these conflicts. Some recent examples of the interface between standards and intellectual property rights will be discussed to illustrate the issues that arise.

Short Biography

Nick has a background in Greek linguistics, and has worked with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae digital library and at the University of Melbourne. His interests include Computing in the Humanities, Natural Language Processing and Character Encoding. He has worked with Link Affiliates on the PILIN Project (Persistent Identifiers), the FRED project (Repository Federation), and the LIMF project (Student Identity).

Pearce, Dr. Judith

Dr. Judith Pearce - Consultant, Link Affiliates

Search Web Services

An OASIS Technical Committee has been working on a task to define Search and Retrieval Web Services, combining various current and ongoing web Service activities. Judith will outline the current status of this work.

Short Biography

After a long career as a librarian at the National Library of Australia, Judith Pearce is currently working part-time as Information Technology consultant with a specialisation in service frameworks and Interoperability standards.

Porter, Simon

Simon Porter - Information Manager (Research) eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne; Implementer & Facilitator, e-Framework for Education and Research, Link Affiliates

Learning Information Systems

Simon will provide an update on IMS work to create a new open standard designed to enable the real time exchange of information between Learning Management Systems and Student Administration Systems.

Short Biography

Simon Porter worked on the University of Melbourne's ERP implementation for six years, and has been involved in the selection process for a new student system, and the implementation of university finance, human resources and research management systems. Throughout this time, Simon has developed a keen interest in information management, and in particular the ways in which the same source of information can be used for multiple purposes.

In 2006 Simon developed and implemented the University's Find an Expert system, using core information form the University's ERP to produce the a public 'CV' for every researcher in the University. In 2007, Simon joined the University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre to assist with the development of the University's eResearch capabilities. A significant component of Simon's time is seconded to Link Affiliates to assist with the development of the e-Framework to facilitate technical interoperability within and across education and research.

Sefton, Dr. Peter

Dr. Peter Sefton - Manager Software Research and Development Laboratory, University of Southern Queensland

Australian Digital Futures Institute (ADFI) and The Fascinator

In the Institutional Repository world one of the key aims has been to provide open access to research outputs. But not everything can be open all the time; there are often embargoes and privacy issues around research outputs and data. While this has been understood, little progress has been made in implementing access controls in some communities. The context in which this work was undertaken was the ARROW project (Australian Research Repositories Online to the World) where even simple access control issues like restricting access to some kinds of resources to on campus use proved very difficult, involving detailed planning and configuration of several different sub-systems.

The Fascinator is a software application which was created to demonstrate an alternative approach where a single simple indexing system would be used to control not only access to resources but to create multiple views of a repository of objects. The system is built on two open source components, the Fedora Commons repository system and the Apache Solr search server.

In this session I will demonstrate the system and show how it can be used in a variety of situations in academia, including eLearning.

Short Biography

Peter Sefton leads the Software Research and Development team in the Australian Digital Futures Institute. This century he has been working on systems to support academia focusing on content management for learning resources and eResearch.

Seiler, Paul

Paul Seiler - Senior Manager, Sector and Business Services (SaBS), Business & Sector Information Systems (BaSIS), New Zealand Ministry of Education (NZ MoE)

Student Management Systems - The dynamics of the market equilibrium

In 2003 the New Zealand Ministry of Education introduced a standards based accreditation framework for software providers (vendors) of Student Management Systems (SMS) in the compulsory education sector.

Short Biography

Paul is currently the senior manager of a shared service unit offering enabling technology services to education providers and agencies involved in New Zealand education, but is probably best known for his work in the SMS Project.

For eleven years he has served the needs of education from within the Ministry of Education, while working with passion and innovation, as the job for him is definitely a vocation rather than an occupation. Combining a theoretical approach with a commitment to delivering, Paul is always open to meeting new people and hearing their story. Google him to find his recent work activities, check out LinkedIn to gauge his network and visit his very new blog and encourage him to make better use himself of the tools and techniques he encourages educators to use.

Tait, Stuart

Stuart Tait - General Manager, The Le@rning Federation

Unlocking Australia's collection sector

Australia's collection and public institutions hold rich repositories of heritage, cultural and scientific artefacts and data. Educators are excited by the potential exploitation of these resources to support curriculum and authentic pedagogies. It is as simple as just "turning on the tap", that is, pointing your crawler at the site.

Or is it? Curriculum Corporation, as managers of The Le@rning Federation, has now worked with twenty seven collection agencies and public institutions across Australia and New Zealand. Our experience is that no institution is alike and that across this sector organisations vary in their capacity to manage their digital collections, their business imperatives and organisational structure. Consistent is their willingness to work with the education sector to provide teachers and students with resources that are relevant and useful. In doing so, these institutions want to know how there resources are being utilised so they can improve the effectiveness in providing access to their collections.

This presentation shares our experience in working with this sector and introduces delegates to an exciting pilot that will demonstrate the work of The Le@rning Federation, jurisdictions and museums to make access to their collection more sustainable and responsive to teacher and student requirements. This pilot seeks to establish processes and systems that shape the value chain from digitisation, to collections databases, to distribution systems and to user tools. This collaboration is a work in progress that explores business processes, change management, standards and feedback mechanisms.

Short Biography

Stuart Tait has extensive experience in teaching and developing online content. His current position provides an overview of developing, licensing and distributing online school resources, including the infrastructure required to manage large-scale deployment. Recently, Stuart has managed the work of The Le@rning Federation licensing digitised content from cultural and public institutions for Australian and New Zealand schools. The Le@rning Federation has now worked with 26 institutions and is managing an innovative pilot to establish sustainable practices and processes with museums to provide access to their collections for teaching and learning. Integral to this work is the understanding Stuart has gained in the business requirements and capacity of cultural and public institutions when responding to the requirements of schools education.

Todhunter, Adam

Adam Todhunter - Chief Information Officer, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria

Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) in Australia

SIF has been built upon the practical, solving of problems in the learning environment and now provides a role that augments other standards. To establish an appropriate SIF for the Australian context the State education CIO's have funded the development of the "towards SIF-AU" project. The SIF-AU has support from all k-12 jurisdictions and the project plans to provide a robust framework for interoperability in the wider Australian education community. This presentation will:

Short Biography

Summary

Adam commenced as Chief Information Officer with the then Victorian Department of Education and Training in February 2005, after running his own business consulting to private and public sectors. Prior to this, he was a senior executive within the ANZ Bank.

Adam worked in the Victorian Government from 1996 through to 2001 where his achievements included:

Prior to joining the Victorian Government, Adam was a senior manager in the Arthur Andersen Business Systems Consulting Division.

Vaughan, Simon

Simon Vaughan - MWE Programme Director, University Systems Cardiff University, Wales

Keynote 3: University 2.0, The MWE - A pragmatic approach to bringing together SOA, SOI, soa, Web 2.0 and Enterprise Architecture in a University environment

With the new ways of working that are facing every individual and organisation, change is being introduced at a rate never seen before. This change is breaking down organizational and technology barriers. Cardiff University have taken steps to meet the challenges brought about by this change by pushing forward a University led programme of work called the Modern IT Working Environment (MWE).

The aim of this session is to explain the process that Cardiff University has gone through to create an SOA based environment which will offer services (both internal and external services) for all its members of Staff, Students (Current, Potential and Alumni) and Researchers. The MWE vision is to deliver individually-tailored secure and seamless access to information and applications that a person needs to perform their University role at anytime, from anywhere and via any supported device.

Short Biography

A graduate of the University of Wales, Simon is an experienced, business focused, IT professional with extensive public and private sector IT management expertise.

Simon joined Cardiff University in May 2005. As Programme Director for the Modern IT Working Environment, he has played a leading role in the implementation of this major IT enabled change programme. He also manages a team of over 60 IT professionals who are responsible for the development and delivery of all corporate information systems within the University (finance, HR, payroll, student records, Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard) and the library management systems).

Simon is also member of the JISC JIEE committee and provides input at a sector level on developments around the e-framework and other important sector level initiatives. Before joining Cardiff University, he was Global IT Services Director for a multinational US manufacturing company and prior to that, he spent 10 years in a variety of IT roles at Sony Manufacturing. Married with 2 children, he is a passionate follower of Liverpool Football Club and Welsh rugby!

Ward, Dr. Nigel

Dr. Nigel Ward - Technical Director, Link Affiliates

Learning Object Discovery and Exchange (LODE)

The IMS Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE) project group aims to facilitate the discovery and retrieval of learning content stored in repositories. It will examine, select, and adapt specifications that are being applied to digital libraries, generic repositories, and learning repositories.

Common Cartridge

The IMS Common Cartridge project group is producing standards for organization, publishing, distribution, delivery, search and authorization of a wide variety of collections of digital learning content, applications, and associated online discussion forums used as the basis for or in support of online learning of any type.

Short Biography

Dr. Nigel Ward is a standards and interoperability expert providing technical and strategic advice to Australian education communities. He advocates Australian requirements in international standards development processes and directly assists Australian communities to develop, adopt and adapt standards to solve business and system interoperability problems. He runs demonstration projects to test and promote emerging e-learning standards. He is an experienced writer and presenter on technical interoperability topics.

Since 2005 Nigel has been a consultant within the Link Affiliates group, working on interoperability issues with all government education and training sectors: Schools, VET and Higher Education.

Prior to his work with Link Affiliates, Nigel was an interoperability analyst at The Le@rning Federation, an initiative of state and federal governments of Australia and New Zealand that develops online interactive curriculum content for Australian and New Zealand schools.

In previous roles Nigel lead research teams investigating context sensitive access to information, socially mediated information exchange, metadata for the recordkeeping community, and architectures for resource discovery.

Nigel has technical expertise in distributed systems architectures, service oriented approaches, persistent identifiers, usability, accessibility, and formal specification. He has managed agile software development projects and has chaired conference program committees.

Winton, Dr. Lyle

Dr. Lyle Winton - Senior Research Support Officer, eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne and Consultant e-Framework for Education and Research, Link Affiliates

e-Framework for Education and Research Technical Update

The e-Framework is an initiative by Australia's Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), New Zealand's Ministry of Education (MoE), and the Netherlands SURF Foundation to produce an evolving and sustainable, open standards based, service oriented, technical framework and knowledge base to support the education and research communities. The e-Framework provides information to institutions on investing in and using information technology infrastructure. It advocates service orientated approaches to facilitate technical interoperability of core infrastructure and allows communities to document and share their approaches.

This presentation will provide an update on the e-Framework, in particular:

Short Biography

Lyle Winton is a member of Link Affiliates working on the international e-Framework for Education and Research. Lyle's background is in experimental high energy physics involved in large-scale collaborative international research. He has worked for several years as an IT professional in software design and project management. Most recently Lyle worked as a research fellow with the Experimental Particle Physics group at The University of Melbourne researching distributed computing and deploying Grid technologies. Lyle was also involved with the university's high performance computing facility, the APAC National Grid and the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories. He remains in the university with the eScholarship Research Centre as a senior research support officer supporting the research community and eResearch initiatives.

Panel Members

Bevan, Alan

Alan Bevan - Cross-sectoral Advisor, Australian Access Federation

Short Biography

Alan is currently working as the cross-sectoral adviser for the Australian Access Federation. In that role he is seeking to leverage opportunities for the schooling and vocational sectors arising from the Australian Government investment in the higher education access federation. Alan's previous roles have included Chief Operating Officer of The Le@rning Federation, General Manager of Education.au, and Project Director of myfuture.edu.au, Australia's career information service. Alan has had extensive experience teaching in K-12 schools, with a particular interest in the opportunities for technology to overcome the barriers of distance in rural and remote locations.

Beveridge, Sue

Sue Beveridge - Educational Outcomes Business Change Manager Schools, Department of Education and Training, NSW

New South Wales Connected Classrooms

The Connected Classrooms Program is a NSW state government initiative investing $158 million into public education. This presentation will provide: an overview of the three projects which comprise the program the Interactive Classrooms, Learning Tools and Next Generation Network Projects; the underpinning research and activity and outcomes to date.

The presentation will provide demonstrations of classroom practice and an illustration of the technology provided through the Connected Classrooms Program.

Short Biography

Sue Beveridge has been a teacher and school executive with the NSW Department of Education and Training for more than 30 years in a range of schools from Selective to Low SES, rural and inner Sydney. During her career she has also held a number of State Office positions including:

As a Senior Officer in the Department of Education and Training she is currently the Educational Outcomes Business Change Manager for the Connected Classrooms Program.

She has presented at numerous conferences both internationally and locally including the British Educational Research Association (BERA), AARE, ACER, Curriculum Corporation, "Pedagogy in Practice", Middle Years, Connected Learning and numerous Principal's Conferences. She has written widely and led educational research.

Dalziel, Professor James

Professor James Dalziel - Professor of Learning Technology & Director of Macquarie E-Learning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE), Macquarie University

Short Biography

James Dalziel is Professor of Learning Technology and Director of the Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. James leads a number of projects including: LAMS (Learning Activity Management System), including roles as a Director of the LAMS Foundation and LAMS International Pty Ltd; MAMS (Meta Access Management System), a national identity and access infrastructure project for the Australian higher education sector; RAMP (Research Activityflow and Middleware Priorities), a project investigating open standards authorisation and e-Research workflows, and ASK-OSS (the Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software), a national advisory service on open source issues for the Australia higher education and research sector.

Prior to his current roles, James helped lead the COLIS (Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services) project, was a Director of WebMCQ Pty Ltd, an e-learning and assessment company, and was a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sydney.

Davie, Lynn

Lynn Davie - eLearning Manager, The Office of Government School Education, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria

Short Biography

Lynn believes that teachers need to see the possibilities that technology provides if we are to realise its potential to teach new things in new ways. As eLearning Manager for the Office of Government School Education at DEECD Lynn's team enables teachers to build their confidence and ability to use ICT for improved teaching and learning.

Prior working at DEECD Lynn was Assistant Principal at Essendon North PS where she was also the Project Officer for the Navigator School Project. In this role she facilitated professional learning for Victorian and interstate educators and hosted delegations of international educators, politicians and the World Bank. Lynn designed and delivered professional learning programs related to ICT and curriculum reform for teachers in New Zealand, China and India.

Lynn has been recognised internationally for her work with improved learning and teaching in schools being awarded the VPPA IT Study Award in 2004 and named Apple Distinguished Educator from 2000-2006.

Harper, Wendy

Wendy Harper - Associate Director -Teaching and Learning Support Services, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

Short Biography

Ms Wendy Harper is the Associate Director, Teaching and Learning Support Services at Queensland University of Technology. Wendy is the Project Leader of QUT's e-Portfolio initiatives Student e-Portfolio and Professional Staff e-Portfolio, having been involved with the development of the institution wide application since its inception in 2001. Ms Harper has more than 20 years experience in the tertiary sector covering learning and teaching systems, IT infrastructure, project management, and systems development. Ms Harper is a regular presenter, of e-Portfolio practice in higher education, at conferences and symposia. Wendy is currently a member the VET e-Portfolio Reference Group and is the Deputy Leader of the ALTC Australian e-Portfolio Project.

Leeson, Jerry

Jerry Leeson - Director Business Solutions, education.au limited

Short Biography

Jerry is the Director, Business Solutions for education.au limited where he has worked for the last six years. He has an interest in Internet technologies in general as well as Web-based technologies applied to education. Jerry is also interested in the application of standards and specifications that support the implementation of education related solutions such as e-Portfolios. Prior to joining education.au Jerry worked for a number of IT Consultants and technology companies across several industry sectors.

Macnamara, Dennis

Dennis Macnamara - Project Manager, Link Affiliates

Short Biography

Dennis Macnamara has worked in education for over 30 years in both public and private sectors and across schools, vocational education and higher education. He has expertise in both managing the development of content and the delivery of services and has been responsible for designing successful business models for the design and delivery of flexible and innovative learning services.

Dennis, while at AEShareNet, developed approaches to demystify the complexities of copyright, IP management and licensing so that practitioners can get on with the business of teaching and learning.

Recently Dennis has managed a number of national interoperability projects including PILIN ( Persistent Identifiers) and LIMF (Learning Identity Framework Management).

Dennis presents frequently on these topics and facilitates discussion around complex infrastructure and strategic issues.

March, Tom

Tom March - Director, ozline.com

C E Q • A LL / Seek all!

We are entering an era when a student with broadband access to an unfiltered Internet can learn more than he or she could in many schools. Conversely, another student could use the same technologies to derail the course of his or her life. The key differences between the two involve intrinsic motivation, a disposition toward critical thinking and the ability to navigate our 21st Century digital environment. Without question, the world confronting our students holds few certainties other than that their adulthood will present challenges requiring strength of character, acuity of mind plus professional and personal resilience. Such outcomes are difficult to quantify, but not impossible and worthy of considerable effort. This brief session will present a new framework to guide education's transition from a culture focused on standardised outcomes and compliance to one that empowers students to achieve their full potentials. Perhaps ironically, such humanistic goals are best accomplished through a comprehensive integration of emerging technologies.

Short Biography

Tom March has been obsessed about authentic teaching, learning and children for the past three decades. He finds this often involves technology as an inspiration to creativity and means to impressive accomplishments. Recognised as a Teacher of the Year Finalist for San Diego County after five years in the profession, he concluded ten years as a classroom teaching in 1995 by taking a three-year fellowship at San Diego State University. There, Tom worked with Professor Bernie Dodge to develop the WebQuest model. Since moving to Australia in 1998, he has contributed at least one new product or initiative every two years. These include Web-and-Flow, BestWebQuests, ClassPortals, The New WWW and CEQ•ALL. Each initiative builds on what's been learned and addresses new needs of Web-enriched educators. He regularly keynotes, writes, and facilitates workshops focused on aspects of making learning more Real, Rich and Relevant.

Miller, Allison

Allison Miller - Manager, e-Portfolios Business Manager, Australian Flexible Learning Framework

Short Biography

Allison Miller is the Business Manager for the e-portfolio - Managing Learner Information Business Activity, for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. Allison has worked as the South Australian E-learning Innovations Co-ordinator, and the Project Manager for the Inclusive e-Learning (Youth) Project, also for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, as well as the E-Learning Development Co-ordinator for TAFE SA. She has 7 years experience as a Lecturer/Facilitator with TAFE SA in areas of Business Finance, Administration and Small Business Management.

Morgan, Teula

Teula Morgan - Manager, Online Services and Strategies - Information Resources, Swinburne University of Technology

Short Biography

Teula Morgan is Manager, Online Services and Strategies at Swinburne University Library. The Online Services and Strategies area has successfully established content management systems and processes across a range of materials, such as institutional research outputs, online journals, images, and corporate publications. The area also manages library websites and applications, and has a particular focus on improving the user experience. Teula is active in the institutional repository community, and is a member of the management committee for the ARROW project, a national project supporting best practice institutional digital repositories.

Newman, Deb

Deb Newman - Manager Schools Online Curriculum Services, Department of Education and Training, Western Australia

Western Australia Schools Online Curriculum Services

Schools Online Curriculum Services provide for the first time, safe, networked learning communities and online products to provide greater access; enrich curriculum and improve learning

Short Biography

Deborah has been working in the area of Curriculum ICT project and policy implementation since 2001. She places a strong focus on the teaching and learning implications of ICT initiatives and is a strong advocate for relevant and timely professional learning support being considered alongside the technical and infrastructure decisions in ICT projects in schools.

With thirty years experience as a secondary science teacher, primary music specialist, upper primary teacher and lecturer in TAFE colleges, Deb brings a broad K-12 perspective to the planning and implementation of major ICT projects. She is currently the Manager of Schools Online Curriculum Services.

ONeill, Owen

Owen ONeill - Project Manager, e-Works

Short Biography

Owen ONeill is the project manager of the E-standards for Training project, which is funded through the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. The project is a primary driver in the collaborative adoption of technical standards for e-learning content and systems in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system. He has worked on e-learning standards and interoperability initiatives in Australia and Europe.

Reynen, Katrina

Katrina Reynen - Assistant General Manager, Innovation and Next Practice, in the Office for Policy, Research and Innovation, Victoria

Victorian Clever Classroom Initiatives

Victoria has a broad range of innovative clever classroom initiatives. The two biggest projects currently sponsored under the Innovation banner relate to new school design, space and ICT; and students living, learning and working in a Web 2.O environment with emerging technologies.

Short Biography

Katrina is an executive in the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Her current role is Assistant General Manager, Innovation and Next Practice, in the Office for Policy, Research and Innovation, where she is responsible for major innovation system reform initiatives including eLearning, the $162m Leading Schools Fund, the Web 2.0 focused national KnowledgeBank: Next Generation project, network based Bandwidth Innovation Fund Projects and "Next Practice" practitioner based Innovation projects.

Katrina has been with the central office of the Department of Education since 1994 when she was part of the team that developed educational policy for gifted students. Subsequent roles included Senior Policy Officer in corporate leadership development in Human Resources, Group Manager of Business and Technology in Information Technology and Assistant General Manager of the Information Technology Division (ITD).

In her five years in ITD, Katrina managed major ICT contract and procurement programs including the network of 350 technicians in schools, notebooks for 42,000 teachers and policy and planning for ICT investment in schools, as well as ICT Security. She initiated and managed the largest secure wireless network rollout in the southern hemisphere in 2005 and was a driver for service improvement in IT services for schools and corporate.

Katrina has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Education from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Business Administration from Melbourne Business School. She is also a Leadership Victoria Williamson Fellow. She recently became a Director on the Skyline Education Foundation Australia (SEFA) Board which provides scholarships to academically talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A career educationalist, she has had roles in secondary teaching and lecturing as well as central administration, and is passionately committed to improving educational outcomes for Victorian students.

Thompson, Andrew

Andrew Thompson - Director Syllabus Development and Resources, Department of Education and Training, Western Australia

Western Australia Schools Online Curriculum Services

Schools Online Curriculum Services provide for the first time, safe, networked learning communities and online products to provide greater access; enrich curriculum and improve learning

Short Biography

Andrew started his career as a primary and middle school teacher. He then worked in a range of roles at the Curriculum Council, where he was involved in development of the Curriculum Framework and support materials and was responsible for development of system-level policy supporting implementation of the Framework. Andrew then worked at WestOne Services, an institute of the Department of Education and Training, leading the K-12 Curriculum Resources Branch. Andrew was appointed Director Syllabus Development and Resources at the Department of Education and Training in December 2005.

Weideman, Nick

Nick Weideman - Chief Technology Officer, Curriculum Corporation

Short Biography

Nick Weideman is the Chief Technology Officer of Curriculum Corporation. He has considerable experience in the development of web based systems and online learning with 15 years of managing various developments in the education and corporate sector. Nick also has extensive experience in the marketing of software technology with a number of roles with Autodesk Australia including Multimedia and Retail Products Manager and National Marketing Manager.

He currently has a strategic role with The Learning Federation and has developed the web development methodology with the teams at Curriculum Corporation that have been instrumental in the design and development of TLF's Scootle and DEEWR'S National Tuition Management System for An Even Start.

Judges
Australian Regional Finals of the Learning Impact Awards

Bloor, Rhyan

Rhyan Bloor - Branch Manager, Broadband Infrastructure Taskforce, Digital Education Group, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Australia

Short Biography

Rhyan Bloor is the Branch Manager of the Broadband Infrastructure Taskforce in the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The Taskforce is part of DEEWR's Digital Education Group and is responsible for developing and implementing the Fibre Connections to Schools and Curriculum Content and Online Learning initiatives as part of the Australian Government's Digital Education Revolution.

Rhyan's experience in the Australian Public Service is wide-ranging. She was recruited as a graduate to the Defence Signals Directorate where she worked for a couple of years as an intelligence analyst before moving to the Office of National Assessments.

Rhyan subsequently moved into policy roles in the Departments of Defence and the Prime Minister and Cabinet. At that time, she worked on strategic and international policy before taking up the position of Executive Officer to the Secretary to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. In that role, she worked extensively on public sector reform issues and, thereafter, moved to the Government Division of PM&C with a focus on public sector administration.

Moving to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in the late 90s, Rhyan developed telecommunications and broadcasting policy and regulatory frameworks. She was responsible for negotiations with the United States on the Australian content and media provisions of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement participating in all negotiating rounds in Australia and the United States. Following a couple of years managing the regulatory operations and state office network of the Office of Transport Security in the Infrastructure Department, Rhyan moved to her current position in DEEWR in March 2008.

Rhyan earned a BA (Hons) in politics and philosophy at Monash University.

Moyle, Dr. Kathryn

Dr. Kathryn Moyle - Associate Professor, University of Canberra and Director, Secretariat for the Australian ICT in Education Committee (AICTEC)

Short Biography

Dr Kathryn Moyle is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Canberra and is the Director of the Secretariat for the Australian Information and Communications Technology Education Committee (AICTEC). Kathryn's work includes investigating issues about technologies in education at local and whole system levels. Her primary roles involve undertaking research into education and training issues involving technologies in learning in Australia and overseas; teaching post-graduate students; and providing national policy and strategic advice about learning with technologies.

Kathryn has published and is regularly cited concerning her work researching issues pertaining to software and infrastructure issues in education. Kathryn is currently leading a new Australian research project listening to students' voices about their views and expectations of learning with technologies that straddles schools, vocational education and training and pre-service teacher education. Prior to taking up her position at the University of Canberra, Kathryn worked for 25 years at state and national levels in school education undertaking a range of roles including production management and digital materials development for use by academics, teachers and trainers.

Smith, Professor Alan

Professor Alan Smith - Executive Director of Division of Academic Information Services(DAIS), University of Southern Queensland

Short Biography

Alan has worked in the Australian higher education sector since 1993. He is an experienced senior academic and administrator with strong credentials in flexible delivery, curriculum development and distance and e-learning systems. He also has considerable experience in the area of information management. He is currently the Professor of Distance and e-Learning at the University of Southern Queensland as well as the Executive Director of the Division of Academic Information Services.

Alan also has significant international consulting and project management experience in collaborative program and systems development. He is also an active participant in research and development work in the areas of flexible delivery, quality assurance and open and distance education. His latest research interests are in the areas of institutional repositories and standards for interoperability in e-learning.

Alan holds appointments on editorial boards of seven international refereed journals including Distance Education. He is also the immediate past President of the Australasian Council for Open, Distance and e-Learning (ACODE), the peak Australasian organisational for universities engaged or interested in open, distance, flexible and e-learning.

Treadwell, Ross

Ross Treadwell - Assistant Director, Learning Technologies Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS), South Australia

Short Biography

Ross Treadwell is the Assistant Director for Learning Technologies in the Department of Education and Children's Services in South Australia.

Prior to his current appointment, Ross was the foundation Principal at Seaford 6-12 School, the first purpose built middle school in SA, the Technology Curriculum Officer for DECS and was also jointly responsible for establishing the SA Technology School of the Future at Technology Park.

He has taught at a number of schools and universities in South Australia and the Northern Territory and is passionate about the use of technology to improve teaching and learning for all groups.


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