IECHE Fellowship Application

I am very lucky to be working at a university where I have access to conference opportunities where I can contribute in discussions about educational best practices at the higher education level.

One national example is last year, when I presented my From EAS to Collaborative Internship: Lessons and insights where bicycles create change (a pilot international student program I developed and delivered) at the English Australia state teaching conference. It won the Queensland 2018 Bright Ideas Award and EA sent me to present the same session at the national conference.

This year, I am looking further a field.

IECHE Fellowship Application. Bicycles Create Change.com. 18th Jan, 2019. — Image: IECHE

The International Exhibition and Conference in Higher Education (IECHE) is an annual international exhibition organized by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

This week, I applied for a IECHE Fellowship.

Up to 100 IECHE Fellowships are being awarded by the Saudi Kingdom so overseas higher education professionals to attend and join in conversations about global best practices.

What is the IECHE?

The adoption of the new by-laws in Saudi Arabia will make the 2019 conference particularly important as local universities will be managing more autonomy and facing a significant cultural shift in the process.

The Saudi Cultural Mission sees this event as being invaluable to encourage participation, enhance collaboration and build partnerships between Saudi and international higher education institutions, and to develop mutual understanding about the issues that govern and influence the quality of higher education worldwide.

Each year an international advisory panel helps select a theme for each conference, design the program, and invite international experts and scholars who are shaping higher education policy and practice throughout the world.

Apparently over 3, 300 people attend this event. Past IECHE speakers and panelists include Nobel laureates, vice-chancellors from the world’s most prestigious universities, ministers of higher education, and leading researchers from every continent.

The theme for the 2019 IECHE is Transforming Saudi universities in an era of change.

What is the IECHE Fellowship?

The fellowships are offered to international educators, researchers and policy makers in higher education and cover a costs for airfares, accommodation, meals and conference participation.

Fellowship selection is based on diversity in geographic location, gender, age and experience.

I worked hard on my application. Given that I am at the intersection of many of the selection criteria, I think I have as good a chance as anyone else in being awarded.

I am genuinely interested in attending this event and in the opportunity to experience Saudi Arabia for the first time.

It will take a fortnight for the fellowship applications to be processed.

Fingers crossed!

04/10/201810/10/2018

Bike Palooza Bendigo

20/09/201826/09/2018

English Australia Conference 2018

This week, I am in Sydney attending the annual, national English Australia Conference (EAC) 2018.

Earlier this year at the EA (QLD) PD Fest, our Bicycles Create Change session won the QLD Bright Ideas Award.

So, thanks to Pearson and the EA Queensland Branch, I’m in Sydney representing our BCC internship team session at the conference.

I am very honoured and very excited!

EAC 2018 Day 2 Program

Session Presentation:

From EAS to Collaborative Internship:

Lessons and insights where Bicycles Create Change

Many international students undertake English and Academic Skills (EAS) and DEP bridging classes to get into university with the ultimate aim of getting a job in their field of study.

There is a perception that English classrooms are for learning English, University tutorials are for discipline-specific content, and the workplace is for vocational skills. Internships are one-way students can become more work-ready. However, a number of studies confirm that current tertiary students lack generic employability skills (ACNielsen Research Services 2000; ACCI/BCA 2002), an issue that is even more challenging for international students.

I was curious to explore what a career development program that specifically catered to the academic, vocational and personal needs of the international students in my DEP classes might look like.

This presentation is a brief overview of the origins, activities and outcomes of this exploration: The Bicycles Create Change.com 2016 Summer Internship Program.

Program background

This Internship was a volunteer, eight-week, collaborative internship that ran from January 4th to February 27th, 2016. It required participants to fulfil 80-110 working hours.

The blog Bicycles Create Change.com (which has over 110,000 readers locally and internationally) served as the professional platform for work activities as it was a low-cost, high-exposure, authentic, skills-integrated outlet to showcase work.

The program was semi-structured with space to modify and self-initiative content. Hours were achieved individually, in pairs and as a team. The team met for one full day each week to review tasks, run workshops, refine skills and to discuss progress.

Theoretical underpinnings

This program integrated key theories including, scaffolding new skills (Vygotsky 1987), the need for authentic vocational guidance, participation and engagement (Billet, 2002), promoting creative thinking and expression (Judkins, 2015) and building on foundational DEP EAS skills and competencies (GELI, n.d.).

Origins and participants

All participants had just graduated from the Griffith English Language Institute (GELI) 10-week DEP program in December.

Semester 1 2016 did not commence until Feb 28^th.This left a gap of 9 weeks before university started, which is when the internship was undertaken.

Key considerations

There were are a number of key considerations built into this program:

Strengthening self-confidence and independent learning
Experience with unique, transferable and challenging skills
Fostering creativity and valuing artistic expression
Emphasis on developing reflection, collaboration and planning skills
Integrating EAS, vocation and personal skills to a range of contexts
Promoting initiative and the ability to generate own opportunities
Increasing employability, CV and work-ready skills
Authentic interactions and connection with locals/community
Create a comprehensive evidence portfolio of work, skills and achievements
To have fun applying skills in a challenging and productive way

Program design

The focus was to build on current competencies, develop new skills, build a professional portfolio of experience (and evidence), and for participants to become more confident in initiating their own opportunities and outputs.

Tailored experiences (below) provided exposure to a collection of advanced competencies that are cumulatively not commonly experienced in other internships or classes.

The program integrated three main competency streams: EAS, Professional Skills and Individual Development. The program was scaffolded, so tasks became progressively more challenging and required greater participant self-direction to complete, as seen below:

Unique features

Participants undertook a series of challenging tasks, including:

Develop and present a professional development workshop (individually and in pairs)
Undertake an individual project that resulted in an output (ie. Crowdfunding project, publication)
Self-identify an industry leader to cold call for a 20-min introductory meeting
Complete a Coursea MOOC on an area of their choosing
Research a social issue to creatively present as an individually ‘art bike’ as part of the team Public Art Bike Social Issue Presentation and Forum
Research and produce five original blog posts on how bicycles are being used to create more positive community change in their home country
Weekly meeting with an assigned independent industry expert mentor
Join an industry association and attend events
Series of community activities: vox pops; invite locals to contribute to a community storybook; solicit locals to donate bicycles; deliver their work at a local community garden to the general public as part of the Art Bike Public Forum; conduct an individual public presentation
Complete an Internship Portfolio (documentation of work and reflection journal that documents, audits and reviews tasks, opportunities and skills)
The BCC Internship Team: Public Art Bike Social Issue Presentation and Forum. Sunday 13^th March 2016.

Takeaways:

There were many lessons learnt from this project and given time constraints, only a few are mentioned in the presentation. Some key takeaways were:

Provide transferable and unique opportunities to develop ‘generic employability’, critical reflection and creative problem-solving skills
Provide integrated, genuine and practical ways to apply skills
Celebrate strategies, ‘sticky points’, ‘misfires’ ‘pregnant opportunities’ and successes
Make tasks more challenging and higher profile
Participants loved having more contact with the local community
Adaptations are needed for aspects to be taken up by educational institutions
Work from the end result backwards (CV and skill development)
Have visible, productive and meaningful evidence (or body) of work
Foster ability to independently create own opportunities and networks
Honour unexpected outcomes
Change the mindset to change to experience

References:

ACCI/BCA (2002) Employability skills for the future, DEST, Canberra.

ACNielsen Research Services (2000) Employer satisfaction with graduate skills: research report, Evaluations and Investigations Programme Higher Education Division, Department of Education Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA).

Billett, S. (2002). Workplace pedagogic practices: Participation and learning. Australian Vocational Education Review, 9(1), 28-38.

Griffith English Language Institute (GELI): Direct Entry Program. (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.griffith.edu.au/international/griffith-english-language-institute.

Judkins, R. (2015). The art of creative thinking. Hachette UK.

Lyons, M. (2006). National Prosperity, Local Choice and Civic Engagement: A New Partnership between Central and Local Government for the 21st Century. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

McLennan, B., & Keating, S. (2008, June). Work-integrated learning (WIL) in Australian universities: The challenges of mainstreaming WIL. In ALTC NAGCAS National Symposium (pp. 2-14).

Vygotsky, L. (1987). Zone of proximal development. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, 5291, 157.

16/09/201812/08/2019

Reconciling research paradoxes: Justice in a post-truth world

This weekend, I’m at a 2-day HDR Research Conference collaboration between the University of Queensland and Griffith University. At this conference, we are discussing how to interrogate and reconcile research paradoxes where notions of justice, integrity and impact in an increasingly complex post-truth world. I’m presenting a session (see below) as well as being a Plenary Panelist.

Reconciling research paradoxes: Justice in a post-truth world

UQ & GU Postgraduate Research Community Conference

2018 has seen the ascendance of post-truth politics also known as post-factual and post-reality. Post-truth is opposed to the formal conventions of debate, the contestation of ideas and the falsifiability of theories and statements. In a post-truth era what reigns supreme are fallacies, talking points, leaked information, and so-called fake news fueled by unfettered social and traditional media, and a highly-polarised political spectrum. What are the implications of post-truth to educational research that values social justice, ethical integrity, the search for the good of the community as well as that of the individual? How will research and its tenets of validity, reliability and trustworthiness respond to the challenges brought upon by a post-truth world?

My presentation: The good Samaritan and little white lies: False news, transparency and project challenges of researching NGOs.

Keywords: INGOs, transparency, self-reporting, M & E mechanisms

Around the world, thousands of International non-government organisations (INGOs) provide much-needed support and aid to those in need. But in the eyes of the general public, perceptions of INGOs are mixed. Some perceive INGOs to be ‘good Samaritans’, while others question project motives and management. INGOs continue to face criticism in a number of key areas: project practices, corruption, hiring policies, salaries of top executives, distribution of donated funds and lack of transparency. For researchers who work with INGOs, this adds an additional layer of complexity to the research process and research relationships.

This session will explore how factors such as unsourced media reports, reliability of M & E mechanisms, use of grey literature and the legitimacy of self-reported outcomes has equally enriched and problematized the aid and INGO research space. Using key examples and my own INGO experience, I will reflect on ethical and methodological ‘white lies’ that can arise when researching with INGOs.

10/05/201821/05/2018

Bright Ideas 2018 Award Winner – English Australia (QLD)

Great news!

In March, I presented two workshops at the English Australia (QLD) PD Fest. This event is the state precursor to the national conference held later this year.

The Bicycles Create Change Internship workshop was one of 5 sessions nominated for the EA (QLD) Bright Ideas Award.

This blog formed the basis for work undertaken for this internship, and bicycles and community participation were main features for this project.

All nominees had a mystery EA selection committee representative attend their session and participant feedback is also considered.

The winner is sponsored by EA (QLD) to present at the national English Australia conference in September in Sydney with all expenses paid: full EA Conference and gala dinner registration, accommodation for 2 nights in Sydney and return flights.

I just got the news our session won the Award!

Here’s what I got:

We are delighted to announce the recipient of this year’s award:

Nina Ginsberg

from Griffith English Language Institute (GELI), Griffith University

The committee was unanimous in its decision. Nina’s paper and presentation, entitled From EAS to Collaborative Internship: Lessons and insights where bicycles create change, was highly praised by both the committee and in delegate feedback.

Hooray! What an honour! I immediately contacted my four ’emerging professionals’ (collaborators) to let them know – they were tickled pink!

(Note: I had asked that the students be listed on the program and in the title as co-presenters. But, it is a ‘teachers conference’, three of the students were not physically there on the day (they are overseas, so they presented via video) and seeing as though I was ‘the main presenter ‘- the organizers used my name only on the program. However, the students are listed in the event publication. Such a bummer we can’t all go to present as a team in Sydney. So I am going to Sydney as the team representative, but this was by no means a solo project and the award and recognition goes to everyone on our amazing team. NG)

Bicycles really do create change!

I am very proud of our team.

We have all come so far since our humble beginnings in Jan 2016. Now 1.5 years on, Gabriel is completing his Social Work course at Griffith Uni, Sachie is back home in Japan completing her final semester, Mauricio has graduated and is now working in Brisbane in IT, and Juliet is a Special Ed teacher in NZ.

The students worked so hard during this internship (and still continue to do so!). As the program designer and facilitator, I learnt just as much as they did!

Now our project is going to the national conference! Hooray!

Here’s the PD Fest Learnings Publication 2018 with all session details:

Thanks all!

Thank you to all the teachers who attended the session and saw the value in what we were doing. It was great to see such enthusiastic interest in our project.

A big thanks to English Australia (QLD), the selection committee and Pearson for this wonderful opportunity.

Workshop Session Abstract – From EAS to Collaborative Internship: Lessons and insights where Bicycles Create Change

Many international students undertake English and Academic Skills (EAS) and DEP bridging classes to get into university with the ultimate aim of getting a job in their field of study. There is a perception that English classrooms are for learning English, University tutorials are for discipline-specific content, and the workplace is for vocational skills. Internships one way where students can become more work-ready. However, a number of studies confirm that current tertiary students are lacking in generic employability skills (ACNielsen Research Services 2000; ACCI/BCA 2002), an issue that is even more challenging for international students. I was curious to explore what a career development program that specifically catered for the academic, vocational and personal needs of the international students in my DEP classes might look like. This presentation was a brief overview of the origins, activities and outcomes of this exploration: The Bicycles Create Change.com 2016 Summer Internship Program.

Program background

This Internship was a volunteer, eight-week, collaborative internship that ran from January 4th to February 27th, 2016. It required participants to fulfil 80-110 working hours. The blog Bicycles Create Change.com (which has over 118,700 hits locally and internationally) served as the professional platform for work activities as it is a low-cost, high-exposure, authentic, skills-integrated outlet to showcase work.

Origins and participants

The four volunteer participants varied in ages, backgrounds and degree levels and disciplines. The 4 volunteers for this program were; Sachie (female, 23, Japanese, Philosophy undergrad), Mauricio (male, 33, Columbian, IT PG), Juliet (female, 37, Indian, Special Education PG) and Gabriel (male, 42, Cameroonian, Social Work PG). All participants had just graduated from the Griffith English Language Institute (GELI) 10-week DEP program in December. Semester 1 2016 did not commence until Feb 28^th, leaving a gap of 9 weeks before university started, which is when the internship was undertaken.

Key considerations

There were are a number of key considerations built into this program:

Strengthening self-confidence and independent learning
Experience with unique, transferable and challenging skills
Fostering creativity and valuing artistic expression
Emphasis on developing reflection, collaboration and planning skills
Integrating EAS, vocation and personal skills to a range of contexts
Promoting initiative and the ability to generate own opportunities
Increasing employability, CV and work-ready skills
Authentic interactions and connection with locals/community
Create a comprehensive evidence portfolio of work, skills and achievements
To have fun applying skills in a challenging and productive way

Program design

This program minimised the ‘daily’ supervision and ‘student’ mentality of traditional internships to instead put supported autonomy firmly into the hands of each participant, who ultimately self-managed their own workload. The program provided tailored experiences (below) that provided exposure to a collection of advanced competencies that are cumulatively not commonly experienced in other internships or classes.

The program integrated three main competency streams: EAS, Professional Skills and Individual Development. The program was scaffolded so that tasks became progressively more challenging and required greater participant self-direction to complete, as seen below:

Unique features

Participants undertook a series of challenging tasks, including:

Develop and present a professional development workshop (individually and in pairs)
Undertake an individual project that resulted in an output (ie. Crowdfunding project, publication)
Self-identify an industry leader to cold call for a 20-min introductory meeting
Complete a Coursea MOOC on an area of their choosing
Research a social issue to creatively present an individual ‘art bike’ as part of a team Public Art Bike Social Issue Presentation and Forum
Research and produce five original blog posts on how bicycles are being used to create more positive community change in their home country
Weekly meeting with an assigned independent industry expert mentor
Join an industry association and attend events
Series of community activities: vox pops; invite locals to contribute to a community storybook; solicit locals to donate bicycles; deliver their work at a local community garden to the general public as part of the Art Bike Public Forum; conduct an individual public presentation
Complete an Internship Portfolio (documentation of work and reflection journal that documents, audits and reviews tasks, opportunities and skills)
The BCC Internship Team: Public Art Bike Social Issue Presentation and Forum. Sunday 13^th March, 2016.

Takeaways

There were many lessons learnt from this project and given time constraints, only a few were touched on in the presentation. Some key takeaways were:

Provide transferable and unique opportunities to develop ‘generic employability’, critical reflection and creative problem-solving skills
Provide integrated, genuine and practical ways to apply skills
Celebrate strategies, ‘sticky points’, ‘misfires’ ‘pregnant opportunities’ and successes
Make tasks more challenging and higher profile
Participants loved having more contact with the local community
Adaptations are needed for aspects to be taken up by educational institutions
Work from the end result backwards (CV and skill development)
Have visible, productive and meaningful evidence (or body) of work
Foster ability to independently create own opportunities and networks
Honour unexpected outcomes
Change the mindset to change to experience

For more details, or to contact the participants, go to Bicycles Create Change.com (search: internship). This project was a voluntary, independent and informal project, so for ideas on how to modify or embed aspects of this program into an existing course or for any other information, please contact Nina Ginsberg.

References

ACCI/BCA (2002) Employability skills for the future, DEST, Canberra.

Billett, S. (2002). Workplace pedagogic practices: Participation and learning. Australian Vocational Education Review, 9(1), 28-38.

Griffith English Language Institute (GELI): Direct Entry Program. (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.griffith.edu.au/international/griffith-english-language-institute.

Judkins, R. (2015). The art of creative thinking. Hachette UK.

Lyons, M. (2006). National Prosperity, Local Choice and Civic Engagement: A New Partnership between Central and Local Government for the 21st Century. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

McLennan, B., & Keating, S. (2008, June). Work-integrated learning (WIL) in Australian universities: The challenges of mainstreaming WIL. In ALTC NAGCAS National Symposium (pp. 2-14).

Vygotsky, L. (1987). Zone of proximal development. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, 5291, 157.

17/11/201714/12/2017

ReImagining Education for Democracy Summit

Life ever stops. Mixing bikes, research and work is my challenge AND my pleasure – as regular readers well know! As a change from our usual bike posts, this post is a little indulgent academic wankery. It has been a very busy week with my new 10-week course starting, a 4-day family trip and a 3-day conference to attend – among other things. Now that peak crazy period has passed, here’s an update of the RE4D Summit (conference) that has been the focus for this week. Cheers! NG.

Earlier this week I attended and presented at the ReImagining Education for Democracy (RE4D) Summit.

It was the first time I have attended this conference and I was very impressed.

To get details of each session – here is the Conference Program.

Essentially, this conference uses Critical Pedagogy perspectives to unpack and explore aspects of contemporary education research, policy and practice that are complex and challenging.

The Summit has a strong political undercurrent with sessions wrestling with issues such as globalisation, the role of the state and markets, technocratic models of education and how equity, access, fairness and social justice are being addressed in schools and within wider educational dynamics and systems.

So what was the ReImagining Education for Democracy Summit?

This event was an awesome 3-day conference that covered an wide range of education policy, process and practice. There were 5 keynote speakers, a free public lecture, and event called Pedagogy in the Pub, and over 80 presentations in the form of symposiums, focus panels, individual research papers and workshops.

The was a wonderful range and scope of the presentations. You can always tell a good conference when you are conflicted about what session to go to for fear of missing out on other sessions.

My Presentation

My presentation was part of a symposium with 3 other presenters.

As a group, we had developed the abstract (see below) and each of us contributed a differing perspective to our main contention.

We decided to go for the practical, for the personal and for the challenging.

Unfortunately, on the day one of our speakers (Ian) could not make it, so we were missing the male perspective, but it also meant that we had more time.

Here’s the abstract for our symposium:

Our presentation was awesome.

We had a great topic and some really interesting and unique expreinces and difficulties to share.

Naomi started us off by presenting her experience of being a mother whilst doing her PhD to tease out some key political and neoliberalist tensions. Sherilyn followed up with a little more methodological view to processing some key transformative ‘moments’ she had during her work disrupting educational and social structures within in her own local community.

Then, I ended by outlining some of the practical ‘shadows, cracks and hauntings’ that I have experienced in my work and telling 6 stories that hit at the heart of when things can go wrong when working on gender justice.

This format worked really well and the session was a pleasure to be part of. The build-up and layering of ideas from one presentation to the next was strategic and served well to show the individual, dynamic and complex nature of the work we do as well.

I told a few stories that I have not told before, which was a little daunting, but I was glad that my presentation struck a cord with the audience and reminded people that there are ofter negative ethical, social and other consequences of the work we do that need to acknowledged, shared and addressed.

Here’s my abstract for session on the symposium:

Did I mention that Prof. Michael Apple, his wife Rima and Prof. Pat Thomson from the academic blog Patter (among others) attended my presentation? Talk about a big gun audience!

Following the symposium, I had a number of audience members come up and say how much they enjoyed it – which was very affirming!

I was touched when one woman said that she was very moved by the stories and that my presentations really made her think. She said it was so important to share stories of when things go wrong and to acknowledge that there are dark sides to research, researchers and researching – and I agree!

As a final boost, I was stoked when a friend sent me through this Twitter post that was uploaded from an audience member I’d never met before.

One final thought about the Summit…. Prof. Michael Apple

Prof. Michael Apple

Listening to, and meeting Prof Apple was a real highlight for me.

It was so refreshing to hear his keynote speech on the second day, least of all because it was jammed pack full of provocative ideas. His topic was Can education change society and I was struck by his eloquence and skill as a public speaker. It was truly a pleasure to listen to his educated arguments. He is a consummate orator and gifted storyteller -and a delight to listen to.

To often keynotes are generic, pussy-footing-dont-want-to-upset-too-many-people-or-prensent-anything-too-controversial. But, Prof Apple went there, giving his ideas on some pretty tricky issues – which was great as it meant you knew exactly what he thought and could agree or disagree with it. So suddenly – hey, presto you have a conversation! Awesome! Thats what a conference is all about after all!

Before the conference, I wasn’t fully aware of who he was and I didn’t fully appreciate the immense impact and influence he has within the field of Education and Critical Pedagogy.

Turns out he is one of the fifty most important educational scholars of the 20th Century and one of the ‘first fathers’ that established this field of inquiry and was a contemporary of Paulo Feire and Basil Bernstein – a big deal in my circles.

And, after following up on some of the things he mentioned and finding out more about his about his amazing political commitment to progressing educational and social/cultural activism, I am now a big fan.

Prof. Michael Apple has written widely on educational and social activism with the most recent being his article Critical educational reforms and dirty toilets: being honest about blockages and contradictions for AARE – a very interesting read indeed (especially given some of the ensuing comments).

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference! See you there!

To give you an idea of the topics covered, below is the 2017 schedule:

More info please!

The website Rage and Hope gives a great overview of the key thinkers of Critical Pedagogy.

For more details on the main thrust, debates and foci of the Critical Pedagogy movement, Aliakbari and Faraji (2011) Basic Principles of Critical Pedagogy is a clear and easy read to get the basic principles and concepts of what Critical Pedagogy is all about and how it is related to education, politics and society.

24/09/201727/09/2017

What happened at the International Cycling Conference 2017?

Earlier this year, I posted about two ‘local’ Australian cycling conferences that were held in the first half of the year – Bicycle Network’s Bike Futures (February) and the Australian Walking and Cycling Conference (July).

Now we are in the second half of the year, it seems the next round of cycling conferences are all big ‘international’ events being held overseas.

The most recent of these events was the 2017 International Cycling Conference, which was held this week in Mannheim, Germany.

What happened at the International Cycling Conference 2017?

This is an annual 3-day event that brings together international researchers, planners, policy makers and practitioners working in cycling theory and practice.

This year, the Conference was focused on 10 central themes:

Rethinking Infrastructure
Attitudes, Behaviour and Choice
Health and Active Mobility
Designing Future Infrastructure
Policy and Strategies
Mobility Cultures and Education
Economic Benefits of Cycling
Digital and Data
Safety
Bike-Sharing, Electric Bikes and Intermodality

Although international in principle, the conference is predominately attended by European representatives. This is most likely due to their being in close geographic proximity to Germany – nip in, nip out.

Understandably, there were many Dutch speakers on the program, but also it was great to see as presenters coming from further a field like Taiwan, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uganda and South Africa.

I was delighted to see 3 Australian presenters, Dr Jennifer Bohnam (Uni of Adelaide), Prof. Narelle Haworth (CARRS_Q Queensland) and Dr Marilyn Johnson (Monash Uni.) presenting a session entitled: Cyclist-related content in driver licensing processes.

I’m currently working on my PhD Confirmation paper which is due in 2 weeks. After confirmation, PhD researchers get a travel grant to attend an international event to present.

Seeing the ICC program (see below) is a great motivator for me to keep pushing on with my own cycling research. (Right now I am in the ‘zombie zone’ and really have to knuckle down and just grind, grind, grind).

The range, scope, depth and variety of the sessions this year was pretty impressive. It looked as if there really was something for everyone!

If you went to the ICC, what cycling issue or topic would you present?

Until such a time, it can’t hurt to keep the ICC Program, Speaker List and Brochure handy (below) as a tangible reminder of all the good work being done around the world where bicycles really are creating positive change!

Click here to access:

Here is an overview of the ICC program and details. Click on the pages below to read the expanded image.

28/04/201713/05/2017

Australian Walking and Cycling Conference 2017

So many good bike conferences in 2017….

There are a number of bike-related conferences coming this year that I would love to attend.

This year is the 200 year birthday of the modern bicycle, so I feel an extra special pull to get together with other like-minded bike enthusiasts and celebrate our common love of all things two-wheeled.

Outside of sports and pro-cycling meets, there are two main conferences this year that have caught my eye.

Asia Pacific Cycle Congress

The first is the Asia Pacific Cycle Congress to be held in Christchurch, (NZ), 17-20th October, 2017.

Mike Lloyd, a NZ academic who has published a couple of papers analysing a well-known mountain bike rage incident and then subsequently reviewed the same scenario from a mirco-sociological video analysis stand-point, reminded me about this conference.

I would love to go to this one, but have a prior date booked that overlaps, so will have to hold onto this one for next year. Plus I will be post PhD confirmation by then, which means the Uni will pay for me to go! Woppee!

Australian Walking and Cycling Conference

The second conference is the Australian Walking and Cycling Conference. This is being held on 17-18th July in Adelaide, Australia. Their website boasts that:

The simple acts of walking and cycling have the potential to transform the places we live, our economies and how we engage with our environment. The Australian Walking and Cycling Conference, to be held in Adelaide on 17-18 July 2017, explores the potential for walking and cycling to not only provide for transport and recreation but solutions to challenges of liveability, health, community building, economic development and sustainability.

The conference theme is Low tech movement in a high tech world.

After handing in my PhD Early Candidature Milestone Report last month, I am keen to take a step back from the theoretical, conceptual realm of ideas and connect back with one of the primary reasons I started my research – making positive community connections.

So I applied to this conference to do a Learnshop session based on some past Bicycles Create Change events.

I am planning a fun and interesting session – so fingers crossed!

Here is the abstract I submitted (parallelism much?!).

03/04/201728/04/2017

English Australia (QLD Branch) PD Fest 2017

Yesterday I attended the annual English Australia (Queensland Branch) PD Fest.

My ride into UQ, St Lucia on Leki my flower bike put me in a particularly good mood. It was a beautiful morning despite the clean up still happening due to (ex-) cyclone Debbie having passed through. Although I admit to stopping on the bridge to marvel at the state of the Brisbane River (click on the Instagram link at bottom of this post for more photos of Debbie’s impact). Once on site though, I found a great spot for Leki to chill out for the day just near the Conference entrance with all the other bikes. It was lovely to have other delegates come up looking for me and tell me they had seen my bike outside I knew it must have been me. Leki is far better than any name tag!

What is the PD Fest?

This event is primarily for teachers who teach English at various levels to people from overseas. Delegates come from a range of organisations all over Queensland. Participants are in various roles (not just teaching), but the commonality is that we all work with International students, migrants, refugees or any other ‘English as a second language learner’.

I presented at this conference two years ago and so can appreciate the effort that the presenters and organisers put into making this event happen. This year I was interested in attending to see if there were any new ideas to experiment with in my class and to see what other projects, practices and approaches other teachers were using. I made an effort to meet a few new people, all of whom were interesting company and had a wealth of teaching (and life) experiences. There was a good array of sessions that were thought-provoking and useful – as you can see from the schedule below.

English Australia (QLD Branch) PD Fest 2017

Here is the full Conference Program book: 2017 PD Fest Program Book

$6 million Partnership Fund – anyone want some?
I stayed to the very end. I was keen to see the All Star Band play – and all day I been thinking about something that Patrick Mafenstein (Group Manager – International Education and Training Unit, Trade & Investment Queensland) had presented in the morning session. He had outlined the new Queensland state strategy focused on International Students and ELICOS Education – which involves a $6 million partnership fund. One of the stipulations to apply for this funding is that application needs to be a consortium (two or more organisations – to spread the resources, work and results around). Here is an outline of the Strategy and all its details: International Education Training Strategy to Advance Queensland 2016-2026

Source: International Education Training Strategy to Advance Queensland 2016-2026, pg 5.

During his presentation, Patrick asked if anyone was thinking of applying for some of the funding and as far as I could see only two hands went up in a full auditorium.

At this stage, one of the PD Fest organisers jumped in good-naturedly to tell the audience that the EA Queensland Branch was in a position to apply (was a consortium) and would welcome ideas on some projects.

Supply bicycles to international students studying in Queensland

So this is my idea for English Australia to apply for a slice of the international student funding.

To address one of the major strategic imperatives (specifically #17, as well as community engagement), I think Queensland should pilot a program where international students are supplied with bicycles for greater educational, employment and recreational mobility.

This idea could go in any number of ways and is only limited by the imagination (and interest and budget of course!). Part of the program could be safety and some riding skills as well as basic mechanical skills (changing a type etc.) needed to get started.

Additional considerations would be things like helmets, lights, reflector and locks.

To my knowledge, there is no ‘educational’ initiative that is specficially addressing international student transportation needs, so it would be ‘innovative’ as well as being sustainable, novel and practical.

The cost of transportation is currently high for international students and the impact of being isolated and unable to ‘get out’ can have serious negative impacts ranging from boredom to depression – but having access to a bicycle is mitigates such issues – it also means students are out and participating in social community life.

Mobility is an aspect of student life that is fundamental to community accessibility and interaction, yet is rarely discussed. Bicycles are a great way for students to also access other livelihood imperatives, such as health, fitness and vocational opportunities.

Queensland has some great weather for cycling, so there is even more of an impetus to get students out and about and enjoying it.

There could be an opportunity to link into other local community groups and programs or develop the idea to meet other strategic imperatives. WOudl be good to link into the local community via canvassing and collecting bicycles and collaborating with local organisations and bike and/or men’s shed to refurbish appropriate bicycles for use.

Anyway, that was the idea I pitched to the organisers at the end of the day – will be interesting to see what (if anything) happens…I’ll keep you in the loop!

13/02/201728/04/2017

Best of Bike Futures Conference 2017

On Friday I went to the Bike Futures Conference 2017 in Melbourne St Kilda. Here’s quick review of the highlights.

Who attended?
This was my first Bike Futures Conference and I wanted to make the most of it after travelling down from Brisbane. There were over 150 local council representatives, engineers urban planners, school staff, public servants, bike advocates, academics, local residents and many more. Essentially this one-day conference was an opportunity to share current projects and discuss some of the main challenges, success and practical tools that various divisions around Melbourne have been working on. The main aim is to increase, make safer and improve urban cycling conditions. This was a great opportunity to connect and learn from industry experts and peers.

Conference Format
As well as the guided ride to the venue, the conference format was broken into three main sections. You can see the full program of topics and a full list of presenters which shows the range of issues and areas the conference covered.

Guided ride
My conference day started at 8 AM at Federation Square for the guided ride to the venue. There were 18 delegates on the ride, and it was a stunning morning. Our route took us from Federation Square to St Kilda Town Hall showcasing some of the best of Melbourne’s bicycle-friendly infrastructure. We had three stops at key locations along the way where we heard representatives from Vicroads, City of Melbourne and City of Port Phillip speak about specific bicycle infrastructure, current projects and considered future developments.

Not only was it great as a social ride (I made a point of chatting to others when safe to do so), the presentations themselves were very informative. I was also relishing being back on two wheels on Melbourne roads – I was flooded with memories and emotions as I relived endless glory days of pedalling in and around Melbourne on some of my favourite adventures with some of my favourite people.

An added highlight was riding along the Formula One Grand Prix track at Albert Park – something I just can’t do in Brisbane, and it added an extra festive zing to my day.

1. Key guest speakers
1. Claire Ferres Miles (General Manager, Place Strategy and Development, City of Port Phillip). This was a solid start to the conference good overview of projects and update of current and future plans for active transportation.

2. Professor Chris Pettit (Inaugural Chair of Urban Science at the University of New South City Futures Research Centre). Chris’s presentation was very interesting. It was research and a little nerdy. His work focuses on spatial planning and use of GIS and mapping technologies to investigate land-use change scenarios. He showed an impressive simulation based on Melbourne riders using the Logmyride app (I’ll do a follow-up post on this as it was very cool!!).

3. Toby Kent (Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Melbourne). Far out – what a presenter. Not only an unexpected addition to the conference given the seemingly loose connection Melbourne City’s Resilience status has – but Toby managed to connect with the audience, be squarely on topic, appropriate and clearly linked what his Office does to the audience’s experience – and a super charismatic orator. Quite spokes, calm and very well prepared, I can see why he is in the top leadership role.

4. Luke Donnellan (Minister for Roads and Road Safety). As would be expected, Luke coped quite a lot of flak – and deservedly so. Not only was he in full politician style of not directly answering questions, he missed the mark on a number of key issues, put his foot in his mouth by disrespecting a Western Council representative (of which she challenged him on very appropriately!) and was a terrible speaker by reading off his notes in a monotone and completely disinterested and unengaged way and made no attempt to looking at the audience at all. And then promptly ran away. Oh dear!

2. Pecha Kucha Sessions
This format is quick and interesting, with each presentation having 20 slides (for 20 sec each) being about 6.5 min in total.
1. Evaluation of Bike Ed in School – Che Sutherland (Team Leader – Darebin Council)
2. St Kilda Road Safety Improvement – Sean Yates (Project Development Engineer -Vicroads)
3. Low-stress cycling in Whitehorse – Amy Child, Arup & Lean McGuiness (City of Whitehorse)
4. Greening the Pipeline Project – Emma Pryse (Project Coordinator – City of Wyndham).
5. Bike Safety and trucks Jamie Ross (Safety Officer – Metro Tunnel Project)

3. Afternoon Break-out Workshop sessions
After lunch, we split up across different rooms to attend our registered session themes.

Session 1: Jump starting Active School Travel
Investigating a very successful case study of Park Orchards Primary School. This workshop explained the process and strategies used to link parents, teachers and community member together to provide a ‘perfect storm’ for a community active transportation initiative spanning a school term in 2012. With a review three years later, the positive behaviour changes in kids and families using more active transportation to go to school was impressive. This workshop was generous in providing details, suggestions and insights of how the project was designed and what elements conspired to make it such as success. It is now considered the Gold Standard of what other schools could achieve. A great session that stimulated lots of conversation and was very through-provoking and inspiring.

Session 2: Getting Girls and Women Riding
This session was run by Bicycle Network and was reporting back on two initiatives – getting more teenage girls (high school) on bikes via a specific program designed just for teenage girls, and getting more women on road bikes via the Ascent event. This session was particularly interesting for me given the unique (and negative) experiences that the Ascent team had in organising and putting on the original 700+ women’s only road cycling event – and the subsequent difficulties they encountered trying to do it again the year after.

Wrap up
The notion of sharing new ideas about a range of new ways in which bicycles create positive community change was a fitting way to conclude the 2017 Bike Futures Conference. The conference closed with Bicycle Network’s Chief Executive Officer, Craig Richards call to action to “dream bigger make it happen”. After the official close, we then mingled and finalised any contact, got our bikes and those who were up for it headed to the pub across the road for social drinks and to continue informed and passionate discussions.

Final thoughts
For me, the best part of the conference was able to meet such a range of diverse people. From teachers, academics, health professionals, industry experts (lots of E-bikers) BUGers, engineers, transport technicians and lots of local council representatives.

The enjoyed being able to sit and listen to the presentations and take what I needed. I met a wide range of very interesting people and practised talking about my research and this blog. In fact, at one stage I went up to some Bicycle Network delegates to thank them for putting on the conference and I mentioned my work, the instantly connected me with another Bicycle Networker called Alex who is working in India with a Bike Aid program and we ended up finding a quite nook to have a good chat – awesome!

I had a great time at the conference, got some great new ideas and felt re-inspired. It made me miss not being in Melbourne amidst this charge of new bicycle development, but also provided some valuable food for thought and some wonderful new contacts. I was very happy I made an effort to go down to Melbourne to attend this conference.

Tag: Conference

Bike Palooza Bendigo

Bike Palooza Bendigo

What’s on?

The Yarn Ride

English Australia Conference 2018

Program background

Theoretical underpinnings

Origins and participants

Key considerations

Program design

Unique features

Takeaways:

Reconciling research paradoxes: Justice in a post-truth world

Reconciling research paradoxes: Justice in a post-truth world

Bright Ideas 2018 Award Winner – English Australia (QLD)

I just got the news our session won the Award!

Bicycles really do create change!

Thanks all!

What happened at the International Cycling Conference 2017?

What happened at the International Cycling Conference 2017?

Australian Walking and Cycling Conference 2017

Asia Pacific Cycle Congress

Australian Walking and Cycling Conference

English Australia (QLD Branch) PD Fest 2017

What is the PD Fest?

English Australia (QLD Branch) PD Fest 2017

Supply bicycles to international students studying in Queensland