Thank you to the members who have already downloaded a Renewal of Membership form and sent it in. Your thoughtfulness makes the ECAWA Committee’s work easier, and saves the association the cost of sending out reminders. It also sets you up to receive all the benefits of ECAWA membership in this important year when we are hosting ACEC2012 in Perth.

The current Renewal of Membership form can be downloaded from ECAWeb  http://ecawa.wa.edu.au/about/join/

There is a slightly different form for new members to complete.

Information about making payments to ECAWA by Electronic Funds Transfer  / Direct Deposit can be found on ECAWeb at http://ecawa.wa.edu.au/about/paying-your-ecawa-invoice/

Proposals for non-refereed papers, workshops, panels, posters, unconference, Twenty20 and presentations are due by the 30th of June, however you are encouraged to submit your proposal earlier if possible.

Full details of the Call for Papers can be found at http://bit.ly/s8aKZW

.

http://acec2012.acce.edu.au/submit

At this stage you only need to submit a one paragraph abstract online, and you then have until the end of April to submit your full paper for reviewing.

Submissions for non-refereed presentations and workshops are later still.

All refereed papers will be published in the official proceedings of the conference and all presenters will have the opportunity to share papers and resources through the conference website.

The Australian Computers in Education Conference (ACEC2012)

ACEC2012 will be held at Wesley College in South Perth, between October 2^nd and October 5^th 2012, in the first week of the Western Australian October school holidays.

This is a rare opportunity for Western Australian educators to access a range of top international and national keynote speakers and major presenters in our own state.

Register as soon as possible to get the lowest fees and/or to secure support from your University or school.

For further information about ACEC2012 go to the conference website http://acec2012.acce.edu.au/

See http://acec2012.acce.edu.au/cfp for more information.

Check the information about the tickets and pricing then create your username and password on the ACEC2012 website and choose your tickets.

You will be able to pay for the tickets immediately using your own PayPal account or your credit card, or you may select the ‘Pay by Cheque’ or ‘Pay by Direct Deposit’ options to receive a Tax Invoice sent straight to your nominated email address.

If you would like the number of your school purchase order to appear on the Tax Invoice, just enter the information under ‘Order Comments’ at the Check Out.

The ACEC2012 website makes it easy for you to purchase a ticket for yourself or several tickets for staff members. You just need to provide each person’s name and email address. Yes, we will accept name changes for delegates up until 7 Sep 2012.

You also have the opportunity to purchase your Full Conference ticket at the special ‘Advance Purchase’ price now, and then come back to the website at a later date to purchase tickets for pre Conference and post Conference workshops and tours, and for the events of the Social Programme.

If you wish to attend please respond to Sue as soon as possible s.urbaniak@murdoch.edu  as places are quite limited.

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An IT Teacher PD Day workshop is to be held on Thursday 1 December, 2011.

Feedback from previous attendees indicated that further PD’s should aim at IT Teachers to increase their technical and software knowledge to assist them in teaching their students.

To this aim, the PD on Thursday 1 December will focus on how to engage students in learning about the fundamentals of Computer Systems using the Arduino computing platform. A combination of lecture and laboratory sessions will allow attendees to understand the context of Arduino for students to build simple projects in a class.

The Arduino (see www.arduino.cc) is a cutting edge, cheap, open-source electronics platform that allows devices to be connected to a small prototyping board with a microcontroller. It is flexible and very easy to use, and was designed to allow creative projects to be rapidly created.  It is being used at Murdoch with great success to excite students throughout the undergraduate degree program.  The aim is to show students how computers can interact with their environment.  This event will focus in detail on the first year experience and also highlight its uses in later years.
The workshop will run from 1pm until approximately 4pm.

There are strictly limited places so if you wish to register please do so by return email with your name, school, phone contact details and current email address. 

 
Contact:
Sue Urbaniak
Industry/Outreach projects
School of Information Technology, Murdoch University
Email:  s.urbaniak@murdoch.edu
Phone:  9360 6514

The Annual General Meeting of the Educational Computing Association of Western Australia (Inc) will be held on Friday the 25th of November 2011 at Wesley College in South Perth, beginning at 4.30 pm.

Associate Professor Dr Paul Newhouse, Director of the Centre for Science and Learning Technologies (CSaLT) at ECU, will be the speaker on this occasion:

Did you know that the Technologies area of the Australian Curriculum is in the early stages of development and that it has a Digital Technologies subject within it? The curriculum is being developed for K-12 and next year you should have an opportunity to review it. How does it relate to the ICT general capability? What is the intention of the curriculum?

Paul Newhouse is on the initial Advisory Group and is one of the writers for the initial advice paper for the curriculum and will try to answer some of these questions at the ECAWA AGM.

Please direct any queries to the Secretary: secretary@ecawa.wa.edu.au

Downloads:

PDF: AGM_Notice_2011 

PDF: Appointment of a Voting Member 2011 

PDF: Finding Wesley College

PDF: Map of Wesley College

At the meeting we will be electing the members of the 2012 ECAWA Committee. There are 15 positions up for election, including President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, LOGIN Editor, Primary Coordinator, Secondary Coordinator, Tertiary Coordinator, and seven General Committee Members.

ECAWA is your organisation. If you would like more input into decisions, initiatives and the running of the association, then a place on the committee could be for you.

To nominate yourself or another ECAWA member please complete the nomination form, including the signatures, and email or post a copy to the Secretary, to be received by the 18th of November. It is essential that the nominee sign the form to indicate that they are willing to accept the nomination.

You do not have to be present at the AGM to be elected to the committee.

There are also other opportunities to contribute to the association. Please consider joining one of  the ACEC 2012 sub committees, working as part of a LOGIN sub committee, assisting either the Primary or Secondary Coordinator to arrange PD/PL events or coordinating a Special Interest Group.

Will you be the representative of your school or organisation and be voting at the AGM?

The ECAWA Rules gives voting rights to individual members and to one representative member from each Organisational or School membership.

In order for Organisational or School members to vote we need to ascertain who that representative member is. If you are attending the Annual General Meeting and will be voting on behalf of your school or organisation, please ensure the appropriate form is completed and signed, and return it to the Secretary before the beginning of the AGM.

Non voting members, including Student Members and additional members attached to Organisational or School Members, are welcome and are encouraged to attend the meeting.

As some light refreshments will be served, for catering purposes please complete the response form or email secretary@ecawa.wa.edu.au as soon as possible to indicate if you will be attending the Annual General Meeting.

In brief:

Date: Friday 25th of November 2011
Time: 4.30pm
Venue: Wesley College - Business and Computing Centre
Parking: Plenty of free parking is available. Please check the map of the College for locations.
RSVP: Please use the response form to indicate your attendance as soon as you have made your plans.

The Agenda

• Welcome
• Speaker – Associate Professor Dr Paul Newhouse
• Apologies
• Minutes of AGM 2010
• President’s Report
• Financial Report
• Election of 2012 Office Bearers
• Other Business
• Close of Annual General Meeting -

Please stay to take part in the discussion about ACEC 2012.

It took the combined efforts of a great number of ECAWA members and friends to bring such an event together, but all the comments we have received indicate that these efforts were well worthwhile.

While most of our ‘Thank yous’ were said at the Conference, the ECAWA Committee would like to record their appreciation that the Principal and staff of Canning College have once again allowed ECAWA to use their wonderful facilities for this event.

The Canning College ICT Team again made things so easy for us, and were so patient and helpful throughout the event.

Our sponsors and supporters were an important part of the ECAWA 2011 State Conference, and we know that you appreciated their generosity, so please, remember to mention that when you are dealing with these people and their businesses.

Next year things will be different in many ways, in that  instead of holding a State Conference, ECAWA will be hosting ACEC2012 in Perth – however we very much hope that you will all be there to help us maintain the friendly,  informal and exciting  atmosphere that we enjoy at an ECAWA State Conference.

If you need information about the Conference and you can’t find it on the website, please call Lynley on 0411 241 261 or send a text message or email secretary@ecawa.wa.edu.au   None of us will be at our desks over the next few days, but we’ll be ‘connected’.

There are still places available at the Conference, and there is even a special prize draw that people completing  ’late registrations’ go into, thanks to Stanley Lui at Little Sun!

Some last minute reminders:

Information about the programme and presentations is on the Conference website, along with a timetable for each day. You may like to think about which presentations you will attend. The sign up sheets will be available early each morning for you to fill in your preferences.

There are more than enough computers available for everyone to use in workshops at Canning College, however you are very welcome to bring your own wireless enabled computer, notebook, laptop, Macbook, iPad, iPod Touch, etc., however tonight or tomorrow morning,  BEFORE you arrive at Canning College, please go to   http://www.canningcollege.wa.edu.au/ecawa  and download and install the application appropriate to your own device. You will not be able to download software over the Canning College network, and you will not be able to connect to the network to get internet access without the correct application being installed. 

If you are using a school owned notebook computer, please ensure that you have administration ‘rights’ to be able to connect to the Conference network and to install any files or software that you wish to use.

A couple of conference presenters have suggested software that you may wish to use in their workshop and have indicated if this may be downloaded from a particular website in advance of the Conference. Again, you will not be able to download large files over the wireless network, so please download and install everything you will need before you arrive.

Donna Benjamin will be working with Inkscape, which may be downloaded from http://inkscape.org/download/

Barnard Clarkson will be working with Scratch, which may be downloaded from http://scratch.mit.edu/

Please also ensure that your notebook computer and any other equipment that you are bringing to the Conference, as well as any power packs, cables, etc are all labelled with your name and a contact telephone number, so that they can be returned to you quickly if they are misplaced.

Parking: Please enter the Canning College campus from Marquis Street via Student Entry B and park in the Computing Centre car park. When you arrive at the Welcome Desk ask for a PARKING VOUCHER, and then display this on your dashboard for the two days of the Conference.

Lastly, if you are not sure of  the way to the Welcome Desk, have a look at the map of the College at http://bit.ly/d0eXvA The Welcome Desk is in the foyer outside the Conference Room.

See you at Canning College on Thursday!