For the past 6 months or so, I've been working with a small team of people to put together Open Edge 2009, a one day forum to explore open education issues for Australian schools. We've got a phenomenal list of contributors involved and I'm really looking forward to it. I work on a lot of events, but rarely are they so aligned with my own personal-professional interests.
I would really like to thank Ian Ralph, Kathryn Moyle and Karen Halley for bringing this event together. We have each played a distinct part of a pretty effective team.
The focus of these events is directed by our speakers and facilitators - and we've got a veritable powerhouse of talent:
- Senator Kate Lundy, Labor Senator, ACT
- Bryant Patten, Director, National Center for Open Source in Education (NCOSE, USA)
- Delia Browne, National Copyright Director of the Copyright Advisory Group, MCEETYA.
- Greg Black, Chief Executive Officer, education.au
- Liam Wyatt, Vice President, Wikimedia Australia
- Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager, Open Source Programs Office, Google Inc.
- Kathryn Moyle, Assoc Prof, Education, Canberra Uni & Director, AICTEC.
- Stuart Rushton, Educational Administrator and IT Strategist
- James Dalziel, Professor of Learning Tech & Director, MELCOE Macquarie Uni
- Julian Ridden, Consulting Evangelist, Moodle.com.au
- Ian Ralph, Manager Information Technology. SCEGGS, Darlinghurst.
- Gerard Roberts, National Practice Manager, Cloud Computing, SMS Mgt & Tech
- Russ Blackie, Victorian Dept of Education & Early Childhood Development
- Roshan Sathe, Certification Trainer, Red Hat
- Randy Orwin, Educational Technology Consultant, EdTech Ninja
- Walter Bender, Founder, Sugar Labs
- Steve Hargadon, Social Learning Consultant, Elluminate
- Jim Klein, Director, Info Services & Technology, Saugus, USA
- Mike Huffman, Consultant, Education Technology
- Irma Birchall, Director, Calyx Information Essentials
- Bob Birchall, Director, Calyx Information Essentials
Of course we are all deeply grateful for the contribution made by our sponsors and supporters, Linux Australia, Dell computers, Aarnet, Red Hat, University of Canberra, Macquarie University, SCEGGS and Creative Contingencies. Financial, volunteer and in-kind support from these organisations has provided the resources to make it happen.
We are planning to record the presentations of all our speakers - and engage in a productive dialogue as part of the closing plenary on where to from here. Follow me on twitter.com/kattekrab for updates as the day progresses - and use #openedge09 to give us your thoughts. We are now at crunch time. Fingers crossed it all goes well!
Download the Program PDF