Julian Dinsdale
Julian has a strong background in operating technology companies in the electronics, energy, telecommunications and software industries with an emphasis on engineering, project, financial and corporate management
Julian was born in the UK where he completed his Bsc (hon) degree in Electrical Engineering and migrated to Australia some 30 plus years ago. He has run and operated his own companies in control systems, software and telecommunications. He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia and of the Institute of Technology (UK)
Julian is a passionate engineer and mentor and has hired over 200 engineering graduates during his career, many of which have gone on to high profile careers in Australia and around the world. He has an active interest in promoting engineering in education and as a profession.
Julian currently chairs the AustSTEM Foundation which is a charity that promotes STEM education to students across Australia.
Session
There are around 6,200 primary schools around Australia, and the curriculum has a requirement to teach Digital Technologies, which includes a coding portion. There are many challenges here, not least which is enabling the approximately 150,000 primary school teachers with the skills and resources to teach programming to young students. The AustSTEM foundation was set up to assist in this area, and developed a MicroPython based learning platform, which consists of a pocket-sized computing device that integrates with a web-based coding and teaching environment. The teaching material has many hands-on activities, with connections to nature and science. In this talk we will discuss this teaching platform, how it can help students transition from block-based programming to textual coding, and show some of the successes we have had so far in Australian classrooms.