The ACTF Education team attended this year’s AATE/ALEA National Conference as both presenters and exhibitors. As always, we have come away inspired by the engaging discussions had around literacy learning and teaching. 

Held in Hobart on July 6-9, the theme for this year’s AATE/ALEA National Conference was Cutting Edge: margin to mainstream. Linking to this theme, ACTF Head of Education Peter Maggs explored student engagement, creativity and collaboration in his workshop on digital storytelling. We had great feedback from the session, with many teachers identifying ways they could use our Little Lunch and MY:24 apps in their classrooms. 

We had many engaging discussions with classroom teachers, school leaders and academics about ACTF content and resources at our stand. While Little Lunch and MY:24 were notable favourites, we noticed a growing recognition of the new animated series Little J and Big Cuz. We were also happy to introduce teachers to some of our older teaching resources, including the comprehensive and always relevant My Place for Teachers website.     

Another highlight was seeing our content and resources being recommended to teachers in a number of workshops. Leanne Longmire and Hayley Wills’ session on exploring documentary and reality TV highlighted our factual series MY:24, and the Little Lunch App and My Place were also referred to throughout the conference.   

It was also positive to hear from educators who are making their own submissions to the Commonwealth Government’s Australian and Children’s Content Review. In this review, the government is seeking community and industry input to establish the best way to support children’s television in the future. Teachers understand the importance of children seeing themselves represented in their media, and are well-positioned to make a valuable submission.  

Thank you to everyone who attended our workshop, visited our stand, or signed up to the ACTF Education eNews during the conference. Well done to AATE and ALEA on such a well-organised event; we’ll see you next year in Perth!  

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