Tech Central Sydney Needs Old Buildings, a Good Cafe, & Course Credit for Students

In Clamperdown Park, for the
Tech Central Sydney consultation.
Tom Worthington CC-BY 2023

This is to suggest planners of the Tech Central Sydney Camperdown Node ensure there are old industrial and commercial building for startups to re-purpose at low cost, a start-up center in one of them, a good cafe, and course credit for students working on entrepreneurial projects.

I went along today to a consultation in Camperdown park, about the Camperdown Node. The collection of government lanyards, and branding, would rival an episode of ABC TV's Utopia. There was even someone from the Greater Cities Commission, successor to the Greater Sydney Commission. This is worryingly close to the "Even Greater Sydney Planning Committee", which was a comedy sketch on ABC Radio Sydney each Friday, by HG Nelson and James Valentine. 

It was a little odd having planning staff of three agencies consulting the public about a high technology precinct. There was a map showing the area, but little in the way of detail of what was proposed, so not much to be consulted on. I was asked about my views, and couldn't resist asking the staff what they would like me to tell them about how to set up a high tech hub, as I had spent a few decades looking into this.

Building Arcadia: Emulating Cambridge's High Technology Success

In my closing address as chair of the 1998 Information Industry Outlook Conference,in Canberra,  I argued that Australia should create a cultured image to market information industries. I suggested Cambridge (England) as the model, as detailed in the report The Cambridge Phenomenon. It is now possible to use Canberra as a model, with the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN), and a cluster of high tech companies adjacent to the Australian National University (ANU).

Old Building and Egg Rolls

I told the staff at the consultations, what was needed for an innovation precinct were old low cost industry and commercial building for startups to re-purpose. The problem for planners is how to prevent this transition zone close to the Sydney CBD being filled with retail outlets, and high rise apartments, with no place for companies, and advanced manufacturing. Also there needs to be a really good cafe for entrepreneurs to meet in. One angel investor keeps singing the praises of the egg rolls at the Australian Technology Park Cafe.

The other ingredient is a nearby university to supply people with innovative ideas. University of Sydney can provide this. One point I had to NSW, Sydney and Inner West planning staff on was not relying on graduates to provide entrepreneurs. There needs to be schemes to encourage current students, and staff to become entrepreneurs, as well as graduates. Through programs such as Techlauncher, the ANU allows studnts to work on a commercial startup at CRBIN, while a student. The students can get course credit for working on their own, or someone else's  startup. 

Innovating for Health at Your Fingertips

Oximeter from RPA in Use, 
Tom Worthington CC-BY 2022

The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is located between the Sydney University campus and Clamperdown, making bio technology an obvious focus for the area. However, tech is tech, so there is no need to have particular policies, or restrictions on the area. Sydney's inner west has hosted diverse startups, including submarines and military drone builders. Developments don't need to be particularly tech intensive. As an example, I contracted COVID-19, and thus became a patient of RPA Virtual. After registering my location with NSW Health, I was contacted by a nurse at RPA, who took my details, and sent out an Oximeter. There is potential for companies offering more advanced forms of tele-medicine, to improve care, and lower costs.

Resources

Building Arcadia: Emulating Cambridge's High Technology Success, closing address to the ACS 1998 Information Industry Outlook Conference, Canberra,  7 November 1998

The Cambridge Phenomenon: Summary of The Report, 1999

Introduction to Innovation - Commercialization and Entrepreneurship in Technology, 2015

Projects & internships for student employability, EduTECH Australian, 2023

Analytics for Lifelong Learning

Simon Buckingham Shum,
UTS Connected Intelligence Centre

Greetings from the Marie Reay Teaching Centre, at the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Simon Buckingham Shum from the UTS Connected Intelligence Centre, is presenting a seminar on "Analytics for Lifelong Learning Competencies: Aligning Pedagogy, Human-Centred Design & University Strategy". He presented a hierarchy starting with the student focus, then learning design, ending with the organizational view. I suggest a few more layers are needed, for the industry/discipline view, national view, and international. University educators need to think about what is good not just for the student and the institution, but more widely outside.

Professor Buckingham Shum showed examples of tools to assist nurses in a clinical setting, students learning reflective writing and more traditional academic writing. However, I was a little skeptical as the examples all seemed to be for very narrowly focused STEM discipline learning. If you are teaching students how to do a specific task in a well-defined job, in a standardized regulated discipline, such as medicine, engineering or computing, then using analytics is relatively easy.  However, there was then an example of helping law students with writing an argument, undertaken with Dr Philippa Ryan, who is now at ANU.  But Dr Ryan is not your average non-STEM academic (she was on the ACS Blockchain Committee with me). Can university academics who are experts in research aspects of their discipline, and are not experts in computing, analytics, or education, cope with this?

As Professor Buckingham Shum pointed out, it would not be very useful to bolt a sophisticated analytics system onto old fashioned education.   system. Also, few of those involved in university education will have all the skills in the discipline, analytics, and education. An exception is some in the computing discipline, where analytics is part of their discipline, and they have training in education. His suggested solution is something like the UTS Connected Intelligence Centre.

One practical outcome could be that the UTS AcaWriter software tool for academic and reflective writing could be further developed by ANU's TechLauncher computing project students, for teaching reflection.

Conference on Future Academic Workforce

The University of Technology Sydney is hosting a free one day conference on "The Future of Academic Work", 5 December 2018. This will report on research on how successful the role of "Scholarly Teaching Fellow (STF) has been at Australian universities. A quick search of LinkedIn showed fewer than 100 people with this job description. These were all at five Australian universities: Monash (11), Macquarie (8), La Trobe (6), Sydney (15), and Technology Sydney (15).

"In the changed university what is the role of academics? This one-day conference seeks to initiate a debate about the changing nature of academic work in universities, and beyond. ... the new Scholarly Teaching Fellow (STF) role was introduced into Australian universities in 2013. The positions were aimed at creating a more stable teaching workforce, while also addressing growing concerns about the injustices of academic casualisation. The STF positions aim to offer a career path for casual academics, and have had an important impact on the sector-wide debate about the relationship between teaching, scholarship and research. ... 100 in-depth interviews conducted across several universities with STFs, managers and stakeholders will be presented and debated at the conference. This research reflects on the implementation and experience of the new STF positions, and the opportunities and challenges of changing academic work. The resulting report will be pre-circulated; conference workshops will debate aspects of the report; keynotes will address wider conceptual and policy challenges."

From "The Future of Academic Work: a Deliberative Conference", UTS, 2018.

Digital Literacy for New Teachers

A report on Digital Literacy and Learning in Initial Teacher Education, has been released by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA, March 2017). But as Dr Jane Hunter from UTS points out, in "The four challenges Australia faces to improve the digital literacy of new teachers" (3 April 2017), the report is full of jargon.

It seems to me, as a non-expert in the field of school teacher education (my book is on "Digital Teaching In Higher Education"), that the solution is quite simple: e-learning and blended learning should be used for basic teacher training. In this way computers in teaching will become normal and natural for new teachers and not something to be feared. These new teachers can then go out and educate their colleagues.

Dr. Hunter lists four challenges, which I suggest are not that challenging, if the new teachers are trained and equipped for digital teaching:

1. Connectivity:  To overcome a lack of consistent connectivity in schools, I suggest equipping the student teachers with a $400 mobile broadband touchscreen laptop, so they are not reliant on school infrastructure. The new teachers can then be sent out (like those in the film "Blackboards"), to provide a WiFi hot-spot for their class, even if the rest of the school lacks connectivity.
2. Funding for professional development: The new digitally trained and equipped teachers can provide PD for their colleagues as part of the new teacher's training.
3. Develop digital fluency: In the absence of any officially mandated framework, the digital curriculum provided to the new teachers can define what all teachers should know.
4. Educators involved with initial teacher education need continuous hands on experiences in schools: The trainee teachers will need placements in schools, as part of their training. Rather than their instructors sending these students out to fend for themselves on placements, the educators can provide advice to the trainee teachers on-line, via their mobile broadband laptops. This will connect the educators to the trainee teachers in real time and through them to the school community. I am helping do something like this as a tutor for ANU Techlauncher. Teams of students undertake real projects in industry and, as a byproduct, the students provide a path for academia to interact with business.

The NESA report makes seven recommendations, but these are aspirational, rather than actionable and unlikely to result in any tangible improvement in education:

1. NESA, in consultation with ITE providers and employing authorities, will review current ITE requirements in ICT to identify how the broader concept of digital literacy can be incorporated. The work will consider what digitally literate graduate teachers should know and be able to do.
2. NESA will advocate to AITSL, the need to review and revise the National Priority Area for ICT to reflect the concept of digital literacy. This review will also consider a revision of the NSW Elaborations in Priority Areas – ICT to include the knowledge of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and online content accessibility guidelines in line with international standards.
3. NESA will advise NSW ITE providers on including knowledge and understanding of the AITSL ICT Statements in their ITE programs. This may be through course accreditation documentation or as a self-assessment tool to enhance teacher education students’ understanding of their own capabilities.
4. ITE providers should ensure that the provision and approach to the teaching of digital literacy, ICT skills and capabilities of teacher education students is supported in all relevant ITE units by contemporary research.
5. NESA, in conjunction with employing authorities and ITE providers, will identify exemplar materials that can be used by teacher education students during their professional experience placements focusing on digital literacy best practice.
6. NESA, in conjunction with employing authorities and ITE providers, will lead the identification of targeted professional development that aims to improve the digital literacy skills for supervisors supporting and assessing teacher education students on professional experience placements and mentors of beginning teachers.
7. NESA will undertake, in partnership with the NSW Council of Deans of Education, a project to share exemplary work by final year teacher education students on the integration of ICT within capstone teaching performance assessments.

From: Recommendations, Page 33, of DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS AND LEARNING REPORT: A REPORT ON TEACHING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION IN NSW, NSW Education Standards Authority, March 2017 (Emphasis added)

Education for Innovation

Greetings from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where the "Education for Innovation Workshop" just started. The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) organized the event to work on Australia’s approach to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). This is of interest, as I just published a book on what to do: "Digital Teaching In Higher Education: Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology, Innovation and the Environment". Speakers include Dr Lachlan Blackhall, Co-founder and CEO of Reposit Power, and Dr Sarah Pearson, CEO, Canberra Innovation Network.

My worry is that this may be just another talk-fest, rather than communicating what has been shown to work and proposing new solutions. There is little point in just repeating that STEM is in demand but enrollments are declining.

Education for Innovation, UTS, Sydney, 24 February 2017

The University of Technology Sydney is hosting "Education for Innovation - Creativity, Professionalism and Diversity" 24 February 2017. The program includes Dr Lachlan Blackhall, Co-founder and CEO, Reposit Power and who also set up the ANU Innovation program (now Innovation ACT) and Dr Sarah Pearson, CEO, Canberra Innovation Network.

• "How can educators inspire creativity through the STEM curriculum?
• What professional skills do STEM graduates need to enhance their creativity?
• How can engaging diversity improve creativity in STEM?"

I will be interested see what senior educators think of my idea of teaching innovation and professional skills online, as well as face-to-face through programs such as ANU Techlauncher.

m-Learning in Sydney

The 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016), was held at the University of Technology in Sydney, 24 to 26 October. There were five parallel sessions in the MLearn2016 Program. The mLearn 2016 Proceedings are available as a PDF file. Here is a summary of my notes from the event:

UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation

Professor Shirley Alexander, UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor, welcomed the delegates and talked about the UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation (BTI), being introduced next year. This is a general degree in technology, suitable for those going into business. I am skeptical of the idea of a BTI as the 21st Century replacement for the arts degree. BIT graduates may end up like arts graduates: well educated, but not qualified for any real job.

Mobile Learning and Indigenous People

Marguerite Koole Assistant Professor, Curriculum Studies at University of Saskatchewan described applying a frame model of learning (Koole & Ally, 2006).

Kevinwâsakâyâsiw Lewis, then talked about the teaching of teachers of indigenous languages in the University of Saskatchewan's Certificate in Indigenous Languages. Asked about the relevance of song in language learning, Kevin pointed out that chant and song enables the learner to stop worrying about how they pronounce. Also the repetition in the song helps learning, as well as being culturally significant. This reminded me of Dr McComas Taylor, at ANU's Teaching Sanskrit online with chanting.

mLearning for Aboriginal Pre-service Teachers in Remote Communities

Philip Townsend talked on "A Theory of Enhancement of Professional Learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Pre-service Teachers in Very Remote Communities through Mobile Learning". He pointed out that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have a much lower completion rate than the general population. The Community Based ITE program, specifically for students in remote areas, has an even lower completion rate than other forms of education. Philip has devoted his PHD research to finding if mobile devices can improve completion rates. Also he mentioned the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation. I suggest that addressing the needs of remote students can assist all students. If we make courses flexible enough for the remote students, these courses will also be better for city and campus based students. Philip was awarded top paper at the conference.

Mobiles for TEQSA Regulatory Course Compliance

Anthony Chung from mobileLearning gave one of the more practical and less academic (in a good way) sessions on "How does a Mobile Platform Address TEQSA and Other Regulatory Compliance for Online Courses?". Anthony went through some of the TEQSA requirements and how these could be facilitated with mobile devices. What was interesting about mobileLearning's approach is that they provide  mobile interface to the institution's native educational applications, rather than replace them. The idea is to make it easier for students and staff to do what is educationally useful. One example is to encourage the student to engage with the learning. This can be difficult where a Learning Management System (LMS) design for static desktop pages is used. The mobile interface can make it easier to access the materials and interact.

IamLearn AGM

The AGM of the International Association for Mobile Learning (IamLearn), was held in conjunction with the conference. Because I registered for the conference I received a year's membership. One initiative is that a new website will allow members to add content directly, rather than emailed to an officeholder who then puts it up. This is something other organizations might like to try

Telstra on Personalised mEducation

 Susi Steigler-Peters, from Telstra Corporation talked on "Personalised Learning, mEducation and Partnerships". Susi spent most of the time describing research on education Telstra has funded over the last few years. This research sounds well designed, but does not tell us, as educators, anything new. So I asked Susi how Telstra could help improve education. In response she cited something called "Telstra Smart Learning" and presented a use case of a student named "Ferris" having an "enriched learning experience". Susi also mentioned a center to be established in Sydney for education. It might be useful for Telstra to instead showcase some of the work in their muru-D startup accelerator.

Online Tutorials for Higher Education

Norman Wildberger and Joshua Capel presented an excellent live demonstration of "Higher Education Practice Online Tutorials and GeoGebra as Mobile Learning Tools" used for teaching mathematics at UNSW. However,what seemed to be missing was a business model to support the high up-front investment to produce such material.

UNSW mLearning Physics

Elizabeth Angstmann talked on "Higher Education Practice Using a mobile Moodle app in an online physics course". This shows an approach to education which focuses on ensuring that e-quality education can provide quality education, backed up by solid research.

Identity and the Mobile Learner

Professor John Traxler, University of Wolverhampton gave the last keynote on "The Role of Education in Identity Transformation and Acculturation". Professor Traxler challenged the assumption that m-learning (and education in general) was a culturally neutral boon for developing nations. Rather than telling us a canned answer, this was a presentation asking questions, which was refreshing.

Professor Traxler is concerned about a Western European view of education and technology being culturally imposed on others. However, this might also be a product of that culture.

Online Education for Prisoners

Louise Patching, USQ, talked on "Using Offline Personal Devices to Enable Access to Higher Education in Prisons" for the Making the Connection Project. Louise pointed out that lack of Internet access is only one factor limiting e-learning in prisons; also there is limited access to hardware, limited prior education of the students. She explained that USQ had decades of experience in teaching prisoners. USQ has a special server for providing materials to prisons and a way for materials to be loaded to portable devices.

Some of what USQ has done would be useful, more generally for students. For example, a problem with webinars is where students have inadvertent left their microphones turned on. I suggest that the off-line features could be built into Moodle and the Linux operating system, allowing the approach taken by USQ to be made available world-wide at no cost.

Encouraging Faculty Development

 Lisa O’Neill, York University, talked on "Encouraging Faculty Development Through Micro-Credentialing". This presented a good overview of the mechanics of recognizing small units of learning with "badges". However, what is also needed is a way to motivate university academics to learn to teach and undertake activities which award such badges.

I suggest that university educators should follow the approach used by nurses and computer professionals in Australia to enhance their recognition of their profession. This could include draft policy for universities and government to require and recognize teaching qualifications of university academics. Also they could suggest changes to university ranking schemes to give teaching quality the same weighting as research output.

References

Koole, M., & Ally, M. (2006, April). Framework for the rational analysis of mobile education (FRAME) model: Revising the ABCs of educational practices. In International Conference on Networking, International Conference on Systems and International Conference on Mobile Communications and Learning Technologies (ICNICONSMCL'06) (pp. 216-216). IEEE. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICNICONSMCL.2006.103

Townsend, P., Halsey, J. R., & Guenther, J. (2016). Mobile Learning Congruencies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Philosophies. In Publishing Higher Degree Research (pp. 25-32). SensePublishers. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-672-9_3 

UTS Engineering and IT Building

Today I have been attending the 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016) at the UTS Engineering and IT Building, University of Technology Sydney. The building is only two years old and is a good example of a modern, large scale higher education building.

Each teaching room has a display screen outside showing what sessions are booked. This is useful, but one problem is that the small teaching rooms have heavily frosted glass panels onto the corridor, so it is not possible to see if there is anyone actually in the room (the large lecture theaters have clear panels).

The large lecture theaters provide mains power points for each student. These are hidden under the desk and a bit hard to find, but work well. The student desks are fixed with chairs on wheels and a generous amount of space. On problem is that the ceiling lighting extends down the walls on each side, creating glare.

The small teaching rooms have flip up tables on wheels, for flexibility. All the rooms have the same standard teaching station, with computer and document camera.

My laptop switched to HDMI output and I needed an external monitor to switch back. Wandering around the building looking for a screen I found a student study room with two technical support staff. They found me a spare screen and I was able to get my laptop going.

There is also an excellent cafe in the building, which is used for informal teaching as well as socializing.

However, this building is not perfect. There are no large flexible teaching spaces in the building (at least none I could find). That is rooms with flat floors, for one hundred, or more, students. The building has many teaching spaces, but these are either small, or have stepped floors (and so are fixed in use).

UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation

Greetings from the University of Technology Sydney, where the 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016), just opened. Professor Shirley Alexander, UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor, welcomed the delegates and talked about the UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation (BTI), being introduced next year. This is a general degree in technology, intended for those going into business: the 21st Century replacement for the arts degree.

UTS are still working out the details of their BIT, but it is positioned for everything from Technology Policy Analysts and Creative Technologists to Project Managers. One interesting aspect is that students will undertake a capstone project, to "... integrate the skills and knowledge learnt and mastered ...". It will be interesting o see how UTS cope with guiding students through the capstone and how they assess it.

At present I am undertaking a capstone for an Master of Education, in the form of an e-portfolio and also tutoring ANU students who have to prepare a project portfolio. For technology students, who are used to delving into technical details, a capstone is a very different, very difficult task. This is also challenging for instructors with a technical background to teach how to do this and to assess.

Another aspect of the BTI which will be challenging is how to have a broad, but still relevant, technical degree. As an example, UTS are claiming the degree will be suitable for future "Project Managers". However, project managers would normally be first qualified in a discipline and then in how to mange projects in that disciple. Software engineers learn how to create software first and then how to mange software projects. Ideally, software engineering students go through stages, where they first learn the basics of software, then work as a team member on a project, then as a team leader. In addition, students could work on their own innovation startup, however most work in conventional companies and government agencies.

Do BIT students undertake their disciplinary studies concurrently as a double degree, or as a masters afterwards (the Melbourne model)? Otherwise BIT graduates may end up like arts graduates: well educated, but not qualified for any specific job.

World Mobile Learning Conference in Sydney Monday

The 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016), starts at University of Technology in Sydney, this Monday 24 October. There are five parallel sessions, so I have selected from the MLearn2016 Program those which look most interesting to me:

Monday 24 October

• 9:02-9:15 Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to mLearn2016: Associate Professor Wan Ng (Conference Chair) & Welcome to UTS: Professor Shirley Alexander (Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Education and Students))
• 9:15-10:15 KEYNOTE: Constructing Experience, Mark Pesce. Chair: Associate Professor Wan Ng
• Session 1 10:45-11:25 (40 mins) Mobile Learning as a Tool for Indigenous Language Revitalization and Sustainability in Canada: Who will the pipe holders be? Marguerite Koole & Kevin wâsakâyâsiw Lewis
• Session 2 11:30-12:10 (40 mins) A Theory of Enhancement of Professional Learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Pre-service Teachers in Very Remote Communities through Mobile Learning, Philip Townsend
• Session 3 12:15-12:40 (25 mins) PANEL: Indigenous People & Mobile Learning. Laurel Evelyn Dyson, Marguerite Koole, Kevin wâsakâyâsiw Lewis, Suzaan Le Roux & Philip Townsend 
• Session 4 1:30-2:10 (40 mins) Enterprise-Wide Systems, Chair: Matthew Burle. Building a Campus-Wide Mobile Platform that Focuses on Enhancing Student Effectiveness and Learning, Alexander Roche, Anthony Chung & John Reddin
• Session 5 2:15-2:55 (40 mins) How does a Mobile Platform Address TEQSA and Other Regulatory Compliance for Online Courses? Alexander Roche, Josephine Chan, Anthony Chung & Matthew Burley
• Session 6 3:00-3:25 (25 mins) WORKSHOP: The Handbook of Mobile Teaching and Learning & Future Possibilities, Aimee Zhang & Dean Cristol
• Session 7 3:55-4:20 (25 mins)  WORKSHOP (Continued)
• Session 8 4:25-4:50 (25 mins) WORKSHOP (Continued)
• 5:00-6:30 IAmLearn AGM
• 6:30-7:30 Reception

Tuesday 25 October

• 9:00-10:00 KEYNOTE: Personalised Learning, mEducation and Partnerships, Susi Steigler-Peters (Telstra Corporation), Chair: Associate Professor Matthew Kearney
• 10:30-12:30 Session 1 & 2 (Practitioner Presentations) (40 mins each): Negotiating Cultural Spaces in an International Mobile and Blended Learning Project. Charlotte N: Gunawardena, Agnieszka Palalas, Nicole Berezin, Caitlin Legere, Gretchen Kramer & Godwin Amo-Kwao
• Landscape and Literacy on Aboriginal Country: Teaching Indigenous Australian Studies in a Cross-Cultural M-Learning Context, Olivia Guntarik & Aramiha Harwood
  Mobile Learning in Practical-Based Subjects: A Developing, Country Perspective, Suzaan Le Roux
• 1:00-2:00 POSTER PRESENTATIONS
• Session 3 2:00-3:00 (Practitioner Presentations). Higher Education Practice
  Using a mobile Moodle app in an online physics course, Elizabeth Angstmann
• Session 4 3:20-4:20 (Practitioner Presentations) (60 mins). Teacher Education
  Sustaining Mobile Learning Pedagogies with High Possibility Classrooms: A Vision for Teacher Education in Australian Universities, Jane Hunter & Ariane Skapetis
• Session 5 4:20-5:20 (Practitioner Presentations) (60 mins). Professional Development Accepting the Challenge of Adapting Traditional Faculty Development to Online and Mobile Environments, Lisa O’Neill
• CONFERENCE DINNER CRUISE, Boarding: 19:00, Departure: 19:30; Returns: 22:00

Wednesday 26 October

• 9:00-10:00 KEYNOTE: The Role of Education in Identity Transformation and Acculturation, Professor John Traxler (University of Wolverhampton), Chair: Dr Laurel Evelyn Dyson
• Session 1 10:35-11:00 (25 mins) Workplace Learning Chair: Lisa O’Neill: Learning Official Crisis Communication through Decentralized Simulations enabled by Mobile ICTs, Hanna Vuojärvi & Tuulikki Keskitalo
• Session 2 11:05-11:45 (40 mins) Encouraging Faculty Development Through Micro-Credentialing, Lisa O’Neill
• Session 3 11:50-12:30 (40 mins) Flipped Learning Approach for a University EFL Course: Utilizing an Online Communication System, Yasushige Ishikawa, Yasushi Tsubota, Craig Smith, Masayuki Murakami, Mutsumi Kondo, Ayako Suto, Koichi Nishiyama & Motoki
  Tsuda
• Session 4 1:15-1:55 (40 mins) Digital Citizenship, Chair: Boris Handal: Teaching Digital Citizenship in Higher Education, Boris Handal, Sandra Lynch, Kevin Watson, Marguerite Maher & Grace Hellyer
• Session 5 2:00-2:40 (40 mins) Using Offline Personal Devices to Enable Access to Higher Education in Prisons, Helen Farley, Louise Patching, John Macdonald, Kyle Murphy, Jared Wright, Christopher Lee, Stephen Seymour
• 2:45-3:15 Closing Ceremony: Chairs: Dr Laurel Evelyn Dyson (Program Chair) and Dr Agnieska Palalas (IAmLearn President), Best Full Paper Award and Best Poster Award

Big Data for Health

Greetings from "UTS Speaks" at the University of Technology in Sydney where researchers are giving talks on data and health. Professor Carolyn McGregor from University of Ontario is speaking on how 'big data' can help with monitoring premature babies, SWAT Teams and astronauts. Professor McGregor argues that better use can be made of the data already being recorded, to provide analysis of health and fitness.

Learning to Improve

Greetings from the the University of Technology Sydney, where Professor Anthony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, speaking on "Learning to Improve: Sustainable Improvements in Learning Systems". He started by talking about the provision of a public water supply in New York City, claiming that "nothing like this had ever been done before" (which seems an exaggeration as the Romans had a public water supply thousands of years ago). This was used as an analogy for education, saying that that needs a similar large scale public effort. Professor Bryk suggests looking to manufacturing, services design, health-care for inspiration to improve education. Given the problems being experienced in US manufacturing and health-care, these would be the last places I would look to for good examples.

Australia has a state based, nationally funded, school system. It seemed to me that Professor Bryk should be giving this talk in the USA, where they do not have a coordinated education system, not in Australia where we do. I suggest Professor Bryk should first look to the education systems of other countries not manufacturing or health care in the USA.

In contrast Australia needs to look at the US education system to work out what not to do.  One example is the problems with student loans in the USA, a problem which now occurring in Australia with VET diplomas.

Scalable Learning Systems

Professor Anthony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will speak on "Learning to Improve: Sustainable Improvements in Learning Systems" at the University of Technology Sydney, 4.30 pm, 4 November 2015.

Teaching and Researching Innovation at UTS in Sydney

Greetings from the UTS Innovation Building (UTS's 'knowledge hub', Building 15,  632 Harris St, Ultimo, NSW 2007) in Sydney, where I am attending a seminar on innovation in vocational education.

Earlier I sat in on a UTS Hatchery Pre-Incubator session (which is similar to Canberra's Innovation ACT program, without the competitive element). Students undertake a semester long extra-curricular activity to learn about design thinking and preparing business plans for a new start-up.

The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) also offer a Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII) as part of a double degree program.

The UTS Innovation Building also has the Designing Out Crime research centre and the UTS Design Innovation research centre.

The question which the UTS innovation initiatives, and the similar ones I have seen in Canberra, Perth, Vancouver, Colombo and Cambridge raises is how can we make this mainstream? These innovation programs fight for recognition in their conventional university, government and corporate environments.

ps: The UTS Innovation Building is adjacent to the new Frank Gehry designed Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, with the UTS Business school. The architecture of the two reflects opposite approaches to success in business. The Gehry building has a flamboyant exterior, with curved brick walls, an extravagant foyer with mirrored staircase, but relatively conventional classrooms. The Innovation building looks like the old nondescript factory/office building it was. Inside the industrial aesthetic of a New York loft apartment has been applied, with polished concrete floors, exposed pipework on the ceiling pained white and cardboard flexible dividers. The Hatchery itself in the basement has white desks on wheels, white-board paint walls and an open plan kitchen.The rooms upstairs have open plan co-working space style offices combined with a seminar room. Unlike a conventional university building, the "offices" are not divided off from the teaching area.

New Australian Higher Education and Research Buildings

Australia appears to have faith in the financial viability of higher education, judging by the new buildings featured in Architecture Australia (AA) and Architectural Review Asia Pacific (ARAP). AA March/April 2014 features the Science and Engineering Building by Sinclair Knight Merz at Federation University Australia (previously University of Ballarat), the Cairns Institute by Woods Bagot at James Cook University and the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, UTS Broadway by Denton Corker Marshall for University of Technology Sydney, the Braggs Building by BVN Donivin Hill for University of Adelaide and the Translational Research Institute by Wilson Architects and Donovin Hill for University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology.

While impressive looking buildings from the outside, they don't appear that innovative on the inside. Perhaps constrained by the conservative ideas of the clients, the building have traditional looking labs and teaching rooms. The Cairns Institute has what is called an "Interactive Lecture Theatre", but this turns out to just have fixed benches and ordinary chairs, much like the ANU Design Unit style of lecture theatre for the Australian National University fifty years ago.

How these buildings will adapt to the new research and educational environment, where most activities will be carried out online, is not clear. Within five to ten years the typical student will never need to visit a campus. A few students using specialised equipment may need to visit a campus for a few days a year. If the Australian economy is to prosper, researchers will similarly need to be pushed out into industry, corporations and government (the so-called Cambridge Phenomenon). There is little value in researchers sitting in an ivory tower, no matter how prettily these are now clad in shimmering steel. There will still be a need for administration and support staff to run universities, but as with the students and researchers, there will be no compelling reason for them to be in a big building at a campus.

Perhaps the best view of the future of the university campus is QUT Science and Engineering Centre. This has a gym, swimming pool, food court and children's educational centre. Less obvious are places for groups of students to study, tutorial rooms, lecture theatres and administrative offices.

Optus SydEduTech Pitchfest

Greetings from the "Optus SydEduTech Pitchfest" at the UTS Business School in Sydney. This is being streamed live. In his welcome, Professor Roy Green, head of the Business School at UTS, commented on the announcement of the end of Holden car making in Australia. He called for work on micro-national startup companies. As an example, he pointed to the "creative precinct" which is growing up around UTS, in Ultimo in Sydney.