TWO tech-savvy Tamworth teachers will be thrown onto the national stage next week to share their knowledge.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Calrossy Anglican School Acting ICT director Amber Chase and ICT integrator Lisa O’Callaghan will travel to Melbourne to take part in the National Future Schools Expo.
They will join a prestigious list of just under 100 experts to present and host forums across five conferences, targeting teaching and learning using emerging technologies, coding and robotics, young learning, future leadership and special needs. The dynamic duo will speak to the conference delegates about harnessing the ‘maker movement’.
It comes after the pair have helped transform the learning landscape at Calrossy, setting up Makerspaces and incorporating new digital technologies into the classroom and curriculum as part of the STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
The teachers will also participate in a round-table discussion where they will talk about “high tech, low tech and no tech” ways to introduce the maker movement into their classrooms.
“Then we’re doing a 20-minute presentation about the maker movement also, but we’re going to talk about our journey a little bit and what we’ve done here at Calrossy and trying to inspire people to do the same thing at their schools,” Mrs O’Callaghan said.
“We have been really lucky that the school has really given us the green light to really push it as far as we have and we’ve been able to go to lots of different conferences and visited lots of other schools and universities to look at what they’ve all been doing.”
Mrs Chase said regional teachers and students are embracing technology wholeheartedly.
“With technology it’s becoming less and less an ‘us-and-them thing’ and, in fact, a lot of people we have been talking to don’t have as good of an internet connection than we do,” she said.
“Even though they are in the middle of Sydney, they don’t have the access to robotics and other things that we’re doing. I think the regional schools are definitely catching up with the big Sydney schools on what they’re doing.”