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Committees drive for professionalism

ACS staff, Information Age

17/06/2004 08:56:32

The ACS National Computers in Education Committee

Anne McDougall Associate Professor of Educational Computing The University of Melbourne Chair, ACS National Computers in Education Committee ACS Representative on IFIP TC3

Establishment and structure of the ACS NCEC

The ACS National Computers in Education Committee (NCEC) was established in December 1982 at a meeting of the ACS International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) TC3 representative, Dr Ian Pirie, with representatives of all of the then existing state Computer Education Groups, associations of teachers and teacher educators.

This was the result of initiatives by Dr Pirie, Professor Arthur Sale and Sandra Wills after the ninth Australian Computer Conference in Hobart that year. The group was established to lobby government, support state groups and undertake projects nationally, to develop statements of national significance, and take a leadership role in helping systems and groups understand learning technology in education (McDougall, 2000; Williams, 2000).

It would provide a structure for communication among teachers and teacher/educators in the states, and support and encourage educational computing across the country through publication of a national journal and running of national conferences.

It would provide wider access to international developments for Australian practitioners and researchers through involvement with IFIP TC3 and its Working Groups. Anne McDougall, then President of the Computer Education Group of Victoria, was the inaugural Chair of the NCEC.

As the size and range of activities of the Committee grew, it developed a constitution and other relatively formal structures as appropriate for its work and changed its name to the Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE). This was partly prompted by the ineligibility of many of the active members of the state and national groups for Membership of the ACS; however the Council maintained its close involvement with the ACS through the TC3 representative/ACS NCEC Chair.

The core membership of the NCEC are the Board members of the ACCE, the Presidents (or nominees) of all of the state and territory Computer Education Groups. The NCEC Deputy Chair is the President of the ACCE Board – currently Ralph Leonard from South Australia. Since the focus of the ACCE is predominantly on schools and teacher education, additional ACS members with involvement or interest in higher education, technical and further education, etc. are included on the NCEC. This structure may sound complex to the uninitiated, but it works and we have a very active and effective ACS NCEC.

Activities at national level

The major work of the NCEC is done by the ACCE Board which meets three times a year (in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in 2003, Perth and Adelaide so far this year) and uses teleconferences and e-mail between meetings. Two issues of the journal Australian Educational Computing are published each year; 50 copies of each are sent to the ACS office. Since 1997 the ACS has sponsored, and the NCEC has undertaken the judging of the national ACS/ACCE Educator of the Year teacher award.

This year we have introduced an additional award, the ACS/ACCE Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Use of ICT in Education. The winners for 2004 are, respectively, Chris Benke and Dr Geoff Romeo; plaques will be presented by an ACS representative at the Australian Computers in Education Conference in Adelaide in July, and as usual the ACS will sponsor an international keynote speaker for this conference.

Other activities at national level include support for and information exchange about issues in educational computing across all the states and territories, liaison with other national bodies including the NEF and TEFA, and most recently contribution to the development of ACS policy on ICT standards for schools.

International involvement

Anne McDougall attends the meetings of IFIP TC3 each year, as the Secretary from 1998-2003, and currently as Vice-Chair of TC3. Some 22 Australians are currently members of TC3’s seven Working Groups. During 2003 three TC3 conferences, involving four Working Groups, were held in Australia, in Melbourne, Geelong and Sydney. All three conferences successfully drew participants from many countries, and all gave valuable opportunities for showcasing Australian developments in educational computing as well as providing professional development and international contacts for the Australian participants.

Two volumes of the ACS CRPIT series (volumes 23 and 34) were produced in connection with the Melbourne and Sydney conferences. A fourth conference, run jointly by two further Working Groups, will be held in Australia this year, again in Melbourne, in December.

Where possible, Australian practitioners attend Working Group conferences overseas as well. Information about the World Conferences on Computers in Education is distributed widely; more than 80 Australians presented, with the support of small travel grants from the ACS, at the last WCCE in Copenhagen in 2001, and the Call for Papers for the next one, at Stellenbosch in South Africa next year, is currently being distributed.

References

McDougall, Anne (2000) From CEGV 1979 to ACEC 2000: Australian Computers in Education Conferences Come of Age. Australian Educational Computing Vol.15 No.1, 3-6.

Williams, Michelle (2000) President’s Column. Australian Educational Computing Vol.14 No.2, 3.