On November the 21st, 2008, the Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software (ASK-OSS) supported by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, hosted a workshop to explore Open Education in teaching, learning and research across schools and universities. The workshop was a great success with 70 participants from over 25 educational
institutions. Attendees came from 5 states around Australia and a few were international guests. We also have a very interesting case study comparing the use of Open Source in infrastructure in a University and a school.

A key activity of the workshop was a facilitated discussion to contribute to an open education strategy for cross sector collaboration, and to build skills and document best practice for the future.

The results of these discussions are here:
  http://openeducation.org.au/wiki/index.php/OE2008-Workshops

Speakers from the day included

• Dr Philip Long, MIT iCampus Project (now at University of Queensland)
• Dr Cyprien Lomas, University of British Columbia
• Raju Varanasi, General Manager, Centre for Learning Innovation, NSW DET
• Professor James Dalziel, Macquarie University
• Delia Browne, National Copyright Director, MCEETYA
• Several leading case studies from both Higher Education and Schools
• ...and of course, the participants!
  

Sponsor

The Open Education Workshop 2008 was sponsored by the Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software (ASK-OSS) at MELCOE, Macquarie University. ASK-OSS was funded by the Department of Education, Science and Training under Backing Australia's Ability. The event was supported by the Centre for Learning & Innovation, NSW Department of Education.

Convener - Pia Waugh on behalf of ASK-OSS < >
Program Chair - Prof James Dalziel < >
Program Advisor - Dr Kathryn Moyle < >
Communications - Donna Benjamin < >

Schedule

Please find all slides and audio linked under each section, and the speaker Bio's below the schedule.

Speaker Biographies

Below are speaker biographies for the day.

Professor James Dalziel, MELCOE

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.

Raju Varanasi

Raju Varanasi is the General Manager of the NSW Department of Education and Training's Centre for Learning Innovation.  The Centre for Learning Innovation promotes innovation in teaching and learning and produces media rich, interactive learning resources for schools and TAFE.  We have extensive expertise including learning designers, web developers, audio and video technicians as well as quality and technology officers. The Centre for Learning Innovation develops products and services for schools across all Key Learning Areas that align with NSW syllabuses and helps teachers to integrate technology into their teaching practice.

The Centre for Learning Innovation is pioneering the use of technology to connect schools and colleges to each other and with the latest learning tools. We foster increased choice, more opportunities and enhanced access for today's learners. The Teaching and Learning exchange or TaLe is a portal that enables our teachers to search and find resources. TaLe also offers opportunities to join online learning communities.  The Connected Learning Advisory Service was also developed by the Centre for Learning Innovation to provide teachers in schools with a tool to help them reflect on and extend their use of information and communication technologies in their teaching practice.

The Centre for Learning Innovation fosters and promotes a culture of innovation and learning across the NSW Department of Education and Training through the development and implementation of major teaching and learning initiatives using learning technologies. Raju is an Australian Fulbright Scholar and was Director in TAFE NSW for several years prior to joining the Centre for Learning Innovation. He brings an excellent understanding and experience in both the schools and TAFE areas of education within NSW.

Delia Browne

National Copyright Director of the Copyright Advisory Group (CAG) Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs

Delia Browne is an extremely experienced intellectual property lawyer. Prior to her role as the National Copyright Director of the Copyright Advisory Group, Delia worked at Minter Ellison providing specialist copyright advice to the education sector. Delia has considerable experience in law reform and lobbying. In her role as the Executive Director of the Arts Law Centre of Australia (1996 – 2002), she advised the arts sector in respect of legislative reforms and policy in intellectual property and taxation. In her current role as the National Copyright Director, Delia manages the newly formed National Copyright Unit of Copyright Advisory Group which provides specialist copyright advice to schools and the TAFE sector, implements smart copying initiatives and conducts negotiations with collecting societies on behalf of schools and TAFE institutes. Recently, Delia led the education sector in its lobbying efforts for copyright law review. This resulted in the introduction of new legislative exceptions with significant benefits to the education sector.

Dr Philip Long, MIT iCampus Project (now at UQ)

Phillip Long is Professor of Innovation and Educational Technology at the Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (CEIT) at the University of Queensland, and Inagural Director of the CEIT which is dedicated to research on learning environments that have the potential to innovate teaching, learning and creativity. This includes research, development, and dissemination of educational innovation through the strategic use of space (physical and virtual) and technology for learning & research collaboration. The Center intends to foster a community of scholarship with technology innovators, and researchers within UQ, across Australasia and around the world, The Center includes students as full partners in the innovation cycle, supporting student participation in technology development at UQ as well as other institutions. Prof. Long’s current research interests focus on designing built pedagogies, physical & virtual to support active learning and collaboration.

Dr. Long’s professional activities include: the New Media Consortium Board (2006-09), current chair of the NMC Board, NMC Project Horizon (2005 to present), 2006 Syllabus Conference Campus Host, 2006, the SAC Program Committee (2005-07, 06 Chair), Adobe Higher Education Advisory Board (2007), Steven’s Institute of Technology WebCampus board & many others. Dr. Long is also a Senior Associate with the non-profit TLT Group.

Dr. Long is a lapsed behavioral ecologist, having studied avian mating systems from the north slope of Alaska to the coast of Patagonia. His area of research was the evolution of mating systems and the biological bases for cooperation. He continues to enjoy birding and adding to his life list when his is not pursuing his other hobbies of sailing and running.

email:

http://www.uq.edu.au/ceit/longpd

Dan Ingvarson

Daniel grew up in a family where education was the central theme as every member of his immediate family were teachers. Daniel started working in IT and education at Eltham College in 1987 and over the past 21 years Daniel has built and been involved in pushing the boundaries of ICT in education. Daniel built the first Education Internet Service Provider in Australia (1993), he designed and built the first school specific Internet gateway(1995), built the first Internet portal that linked logins to Internet activity in a centralised infrastructure (1998), which changed the way Internet was managed in Australia. At one stage his software was used by over 50% of Australian students. All developed on top of Open Source and in collaboration with the Open Source Community.

Daniel went on(2000) to conceive, design, and develop an e-learning platform that includes a Personal Portal, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), Learning Content Management System and Federated search, and an e-portfolio for students with WYSIWYG publishing. This software called myclasses won the major software award in Australia, the National Australian Internet Industry Association innovation award. Daniels software which was arguably one of the top k-12 e-learning platforms in the world, with over 2.7 Million users in five countries including the UK where it is part of the BECTA Learning Platform. Daniel sold this businesses in 2005 and has now commenced working with education systems, government bodies, and companies on e-learning strategy, architecture and making effectively learning platforms

Donna Benjamin

Donna Benjamin is the Executive Director of Creative Contingencies, an Australian company specialising in customised web services, research and event management. In addition to this Donna is currently President of Linux Users of Victoria and an active member of LinuxChix, Open Source Victoria and Open Source Industry of Australia (OSIA). Donna was a board member of OSIA and ran as director for 2006-2008 and currently organises the Melbourne OSIA gatherings. She was the lead organiser for Australia's largest free and open source conference, linux.conf.au in Melbourne in 2008.

Donna is a passionate advocate of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) solutions for small business and education and is working on a Matrix matching the Victorian Essential learning standards with FOSS applications.  She recently delivered a keynote address at the K12 Open Minds conference in Indianapolis, USA.

Dr Kathryn Moyle

Dr Kathryn Moyle is an Associate Professor at the University of Canberra where her roles include undertaking research, post-graduate teaching and community service. Kathryn also holds the role of Director of the Secretariat for the Australian ICT in Education Committee. Kathryn is regularly interviewed by the media about open source software in schools and over the past 5 years she has published articles, research reports and book chapters on this and related topics. Kathryn has recently returned from Portugal where she was the guest of the Ministry of Education, and was the keynote speaker at their 2008 Open source in schools conference, held on Software Freedom Day.

Case study biographies

Concetta Gotlieb

Concetta Gotlieb is a primary school teacher who uses her experiences in the corporate world to fuel technology induced fun into the classroom. I'm interested in assistive and inclusive technology, not just for those who need them but for all of us who benefit from hearing the voices in more ways than one. I currently working in a school in Western Sydney, the kids are fun but a handful. It's a special education school designed to help students with emotional disturbances and mild intellectual disorders learn skills to help them back into mainstream classrooms. I also work for Edna on me.edu.au projects including creating instructional videos for new site users and blogging about my work in the classroom

Chris Chesher

Chris Chesher is Director of the Digital Cultures program at the University of Sydney. His research explores intersections of technological and cultural change. He is currently completing a co-authored book _Understanding the Internet: Language, Technology, Media and Power. He drove the introduction of the open source learning management system Moodle in the Faculty of Arts, in an environment dominated by WebCT/Blackboard. The Moodle platform recently reached the threshold for official Faculty support.

Ian Ralph

Ian Ralph has been in his current role as IT Manager at SCEGGS Darlinghurst since 1992. Most of his time is taken up with the day to day management of the School's network with the aim of achieving the best educational use of the resources he manages. Ian's interest in open source software started in the mid 1990s when his School's first web server was hosted on a Linux box. Today a number of open source applications provide essential services for SCEGGS' staff, students and the wider school community.