Every year EduTECH produces targeted information for educators seeking to maximise their own learning opportunities, and therefore provide enhanced teaching to their students.
To that end, Dr Megan Vazey has been appointed Head of Education for EduTECH and FutureSchools.
Not only has Dr Vazey already chaired conferences for FutureSchools, she has also been active in the field of STEM learning for years, developing professional learning in computational thinking, making, coding and physical computing, managing 49 AISNSW commonwealth-funded STEM projects. Her PhD was gained in Computing, specialising in big data.
“It’s fabulously exciting to be curating EduTECH, the biggest Festival of Education in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Dr Vazey. “We have a massive opportunity in Australia to elevate learning above and beyond anything we’ve seen before. While technology is the lever that can help us do that, it is vision, mission and culture that drives the necessary change.
“Educators need to continue their work at the human interface of technology to let humans do what humans do best, and computers do what computers do best. The compelling need for school leadership, learning strategies, and teaching resources to be shared through digital networking has never been greater.”
In the role as Head of Education, Dr Vazey will be tasked with talking to leaders of education, students and industry to discover what challenges need to be addressed and where things can be done better. She is currently accepting speaker submissions for either FutureSchools or EduTECH which closes on 30th September 2016.
The experience Dr Vazey has gained in previous roles will easily be transferred to her new one, such as the learning derived from teaching coding.
“Teaching kids to code isn’t the hard part, nor the most important,” she explains. “It’s teaching kids to think, imagine and believe that matters.”
“We need a nation of computation thinkers who can work smarter, not harder, so they can look after house and home. The house is our planet, with all its environmental ecosystems, and the home is our international human family.”
In omen of her new appointment with EduTECH, Dr Vazey has also been appointed a Fellow of Engineers Australia, in recognition of her status of one of the true leaders of the engineering industry and profession.
“It’s an acknowledgement of years of service in physical computing, digital technologies and computation thinking, as well as the work I’ve done in STEM education for the past few years. It’s very exciting and I’m extremely humbled to be offered the Fellow Membership.”
Dr Vazey is an exciting contribution to the event, and wants to hear from you! Whether you are a world-famous author or an every-day teacher with an interesting story to tell, every application will be considered. Applications to speak close on September 30, 2016.
