Broadband for the Bush Alliance

Forum V 2017,Rydges Esplanade Hotel, Freemantle, WA

Speaker Template

Full Name
For printingin the program, including formal titles and honours
Michelle Williams and Paul Sutton
Organisation
Or company name / Digital Learning Futures
Position
Or title / Directors
Short biography
80 words max.
Michelle and Paul have worked in remote Indigenous communities since 2000 engaging in education and training projects. They use their knowledge of learning to design and host learning programs. Instead of “doing training”, they use a variety of strategies to engage interest and develop understanding. Their workshops are unlike traditional training. They learn how Indigenous young and older people learn with technology from participants. They are keen to help policy initiatives change the training/learning agenda.
Session title

Towards a framework for a Remote Telecommunications Strategy (RTS)

Ideas to consider about Everyday Digital Skills

Session description for the program
70 words max.
Michelle Williams and Paul Sutton have been on a Journey to 13 remote communities in the Ngaanyatjarraku Lands of the Southern Gibson Desert assisting NG Media and IRCA deliver an Everyday Digital Skills Program. From this and more than 10 years of delivering similar programs in remote regions, they offer some questions and ideas to support the Forum’s thinking about Digital Skills and how they can be acquired.
The best theme to capture your message:
Regional innovation - from digital isolation to digital revolution
Session description
Brief synopsis/introduction about the session including format you will adopt. Session format(300 words max.)
This year, Michelle Williams and Paul Sutton have been on a Journey to 13 remote communities in the Ngaanyatjarraku Lands of the Southern Gibson Desert assisting NG Media and IRCA deliver an Everyday Digital Skills Program. From this and more than 10 years of delivering similar programs in remote regions, they offer some questions and ideas to support the Forum’s thinking about Digital Skills and how they can be acquired. Usual understandings of digital literacy, learning strategies and program design need not apply to future thinking about the role of skills development in a Remote Telecommunications Strategy.
We are interested in changing thinking about three themes
  1. What does it mean to be digitally literate in changing Indigenous communities where digital awareness is accelerating with improving connectivity?
  2. What does the evolving digital divide look like now? Is it a single gap or is it diversifying?
  3. What are appropriate learning models in a shifting digital culture?
For example, some questions
  • What happens when your curriculum is “What do you want to learn today?”
  • How do the needs of digital consumers and producers differ? Should we be inviting people to transit this gap?
  • What is the impact of personal connected devices on what is important to learn?
  • What is the role of community leadership in progressing digital engagement? How can digital leadership be nurtured?
  • Can implementation models be demand driven rather than supplied on a formula? Will Government and funding bodies provide the freedom to try very different ideas?
These and other questions and ideas seek to influence how Government and funding agencies design digital learning programs as a centerpiece of a Remote Telecommunications Strategy.
The session will begin with a short background, presentation of data (10 mins) and then engage the audience using a fishbowl technique to invoke responses to the themes.
Social media - online contacts
Please provide email address, phone,
Add relevant LinkedIn, URL, Twitter handle or Facebook page, etc.
Michelle Williams and Paul Sutton,
0414813491


Photo
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Email . Please use B4B 2017: Speaker application as a subject in your email.

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