Claire Amos

Google Teacher Academy, Sydney 2014 Last week I was lucky enough to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Sydney, completing two days of workshops run by the NoTosh team and a group of fabulous GTA mentors. It was a jammed packed two days where delegates were taken through the design thinking process so as to realise our ' Moonshot Thinking ' and make a plan for changing up education and us all to take our aspirations for education and multiply them by 10. My Moonshot So what did we do? The first day was mainly about taking us through the design thinking (see NoTosh explanation of design thinking here ) phases of immersion and synthesis , so as to explore and define our 'Moonshot thinking' - this was basically an issue or opportunity we saw for implementing change in education. We used strategies such as hexagonal thinking to connect/arrange our thinking about our issues and ideas before we then tried to capture our moonshot plan within a writing frame....

Tuesday morning this week I am lucky enough to be flying away to Sydney to join 49 other educators at the Google Teacher Academy. Below is the video I submitted as part of my application to be considered as one of the GTA Ambassadors for Change. So why did I apply for the academy? Whilst I am actually an advocate for educators to be as device and brand agnostic as possible, I have to admit, I do really like Google Apps for Educators. The reason GAFE appeals is simple. GAFE is a suite of tools that supports the pedagogical approach I value - co-constructed, sharing, transparent and supports student agency. The other reason I applied was the company who was taking over the GTA. This GTA is the first academy to be run by NoTosh  an international education consultancy "which challenges the status quo in schools, public services and creative companies. We work together with clients to improve the way people learn, the results of the organisation and the spaces in which...

On Thursday I was lucky enough to be invited to give the opening address at the Australasian Curriculum, Assessment and Qualification Authorities (ACACA) Conference who as their website states  is the national body for the chief executives of the statutory bodies in the Australian states and territories and in New Zealand, responsible for certificates of senior secondary education.  ACACA provides a (Australasian) national means for monitoring and enhancing developments in senior secondary curriculum and certification.  My message was a variation on what I often get invited to speak about - my journey from English teacher to e-learning learning and the lessons I have learned about leading change from my time at Epsom Girls Grammar School and the work I am involved in with the team at Hobsonville Point Secondary School rounded off with a few challenges and reminders as to why we all must be invested in changing education and ideas about how we might start making that...