Keynote Speaker: Carrie Anne Philbin

Submitted on 2015-07-13 16:17

Following on from 2014's inspirational keynote advocating Python for Every Child in Australia as part of the rollout of the Australian Digital Curriculum, this year sees PyCon Australia playing host to its first ever Python in Education miniconf. As part of that event, we are thrilled to announce our second PyCon Australia 2015 keynote speaker: Carrie Anne Philbin, Education Pioneer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, chair of the UK's Computing at School's #include initiative, author of "Adventures in Raspberry Pi", and a member of the Board of Directors for the Python Software Foundation.

As an award winning secondary Computing & ICT teacher, Carrie Anne is a vocal advocate for the merits of Python as an educational tool, and brings to PyCon Australia a wealth of experience with the UK's search for a suitable text based programming language to serve as a follow on from self-contained visual programming environments like Scratch.

However, while Python is already a good tool for educational use, it's far from perfect. During the main conference, Carrie Anne will discuss existing barriers to Python becoming the premier language of choice for teaching computer science, and some of the possible ways those barriers could be lowered through improved tooling and further support from the Python developer community.

In addition to her keynote presentation, as part of the Python in Education miniconf, Carrie Anne will be reviewing the Raspberry Pi Foundation's experiences in creating and delivering the Picademy continuing professional development workshops for teachers in the UK, as well as facilitating small group “birds of a feather” sessions where teachers and interested developers can explore ways to collaborate more effectively on both formal and informal educational efforts.

Carrie Anne has a blended and open approach to teaching as can be seen by her website ICT with Miss P that students use to access their weekly lessons. She uses innovative web tools to help support and extend the learning in her 21st century classroom which resulted in becoming a Skype Moment Maker and ambassador for technology in 2014. Carrie Anne often speaks at conferences like BETT, Raspberry Jamboree, YRS and PyconUK, and is the creator of a YouTube video series for teenage girls called The Geek Gurl Diaries, which has won a Talk Talk Digital Hero Award. The episodes include interviews with women working in technology and hands on computer science based tutorials.

It's genuinely exciting to offer such a practical follow-up to 2014's Python for Every Child in Australia as we help forge stronger connections between Australia's open source and educational communities.

PyCon Australia has endeavoured to keep tickets as affordable as possible. We are able to do so, thanks to our Sponsors and Contributors. Registrations for PyCon Australia 2015 are now open, with prices starting at AU$50 for students, and tickets for the general public starting at AU$240 for the entire conference, or $100 specifically to attend the Friday miniconfs. All prices include GST, and more information can be found at http://2015.pycon-au.org/register/prices

Thanks to the generous contributions of the Python Software Foundation and Code Club Australia, targeted financial assistance is available for qualified teachers wishing to attend PyCon Australia for either the entire conference or specifically for the Python in Education miniconf. Teachers wishing to take advantage of this offer should apply through the conference's financial assistance program and mention in their application that they're a qualified teacher.