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Dear Colleagues
Internationally the learning city movement is growing from strength to strength. The latest UNESCO UIL newsletter reports there are now 229 cities, including three in Australia, which are members of UNESCO’s Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC).
Recently Sally Edwards resigned from her position with Melton City Council and on the ALCN Executive. We acknowledge and thank Sally for the work she did in growing the learning city movement in Melton, Australia and internationally and are pleased to hear that Melton and Wyndham will cooperate to run another online Global Learning Festival this year.
Our learning community members continue to undertake outstanding learning initiatives and ALCN is very keen to report on this work. Last year Ken Thompson and I developed a story template so we could capture case studies from our members in a way that better reflected the impact of the projects on their communities. In this newsletter, Julie McKay, Founder & Managing Director of Enable Social Enterprises, writes about the impressive Renew Tech for Good Initiative using the Policy Initiative Template. Our intention is to feature this story on our website. Once we have several stories, we will produce a booklet of stories! Please let me know if you are interested in contributing.
Peter Kearns, AO, has written a paper for ALCN reflecting on Learning Cities in Australia: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (see below). Peter will present on this at this year’s AGM on 11 May (2pm). Jac Torres-Gomez from Wyndham City Council worked on a PASCAL International Observatory project with Peter last year and will provide her reflections on Empathy Partnerships. Jac’s paper received international attention so I encourage you to lock in this date and join us for an interesting discussion.
Finally, we enjoyed hosting RMIT International Development student Hellen Kibowen and thank her for her contribution.
Dr Leone Wheeler
Hon. CEO
Australian Learning Communities Network
Website: www.alcn.com.au
+61 (0) 456 038 236 Email: [email protected]
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Congratulations to Peter Kearns
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Congratulations to our member, Peter Kearns OAM, on the award of AM (Member of the Order of Australia) for significant service to education, particularly adult and lifelong learning.
Peter is a thought leader in lifelong learning and learning cities in Australia. I have worked with Peter Kearns on the Board of PASCAL Observatory and as a member of the Hume Global Learning Village (HGLV) Research Committee for the period (2003-2012) as well as seen him in action at many national and international conferences, and we as a learning community continue to benefit from his writing and ideas, including his latest work on EcCoWELL. Peter shares his thoughts on Learning Cities in Australia – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. We include his thoughts on this topic and hope you will add to the discussion when Peter speaks about it at our AGM on 11 May (2pm). Read more in his article featured further in this newsletter.
https://www.govhouse.qld.gov.au/office-of-the-governor/news-publications/latest-news/2021/january/governor-congratulates-australian-honours-recipients.aspx
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Sally Edwards Farewells the ALCN
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Sally Edwards leaves her position as Coordinator Community Activation and Learning, Melton City Council, and as a member of the ALCN Executive. The Executive thanks Sally for her tireless work in promoting the work of learning cities in Melton, Australia. Internationally. Sally made significant contributions to the ALCN in a number of ways, in particular, workshops, online learning, and co-organising (with Wyndham) the first Global Learning Festival as part of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities . We wish her well for the future. For information about Melton Learning City contact Adam Josifovski, Acting Coordinator Community Activation and Learning, [email protected]
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Work Integrated Learning Student - Hellen Kibowen
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For the second half of 2020, the Australian Learning Communities Network (ALCN), RMIT University and Wyndham City Council partnered to host an RMIT International Development student to work with Wyndham City Council on the research and evaluation of two key projects: the Global Learning Festival (GLF) held in September 2020 and the Wyndham Learning Festival held in November 2020. The student selected for this placement, Hellen Kibowen, comes from an indigenous community in Kenya and is studying a Masters in International Development at RMIT University while also working part time as a project officer with the Burnet Institute. She also has a background in anthropology. Hellen was very enthusiastic and with assistance from the Wyndham team added invaluable insight, humour and commitment to the two projects she was involved with, including developing questionnaires and writing stories using the Most Significant Change Technique to showcase the impact of the two festivals on those involved. As a final component to her work, Hellen shared her reflections about her experience at the first ALCN Executive meeting on 9 February 2021. Part of her next steps include using the skills gained in her work and studies, and marketing the Global Learning Festival to her networks in Kenya.
The Learning Community team were so impressed with the caliber of this student placement, a request has been made to RMIT for another student placement in 2021.
Photo – meeting in “real life” for the first/last time – due to COVID-19 the placement was completed virtually!
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Feature Story - Hume Learning Community
Enable Social Enterprises - Renew Tech for Good Initiative
By Julie McKay
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Learning Community Themes Addressed
- Bridging the digital divide/ learning with technology.
- Learning for and in the workplace.
- Fostering a culture of lifelong learning; inclusive learning; formal learning from K-12, post-secondary, higher education.
- Entrepreneurial learning; individual empowerment; learning for sustainable development (climate change), economic and cultural prosperity.
- Responds to COVID-19.
Background – About Enable
Enable is a leading and award-winning not for profit Social Enterprise on a mission to tackle disadvantage and the digital divide by connecting community, environment, and local economies.
Since 2015, Enable have supported hundreds of people from disadvantaged backgrounds to connect with community, environment, and improve their prospects of employment through innovative work and learning programs.
Enable operate commercially in the Computer decommissioning and recycling, warehousing, fulfilment and storage and Online Retailing sectors with 100% of the profits from trade re-invested to operate and support a total of nine (9) work and learning stations to support participants with skill-building, confidence, and career decision-making. Enable program outcomes and issues addressed are best contextualized their overall periodical Impact Statements.
Issues and Impact
Enable, whilst a small not for profit and social enterprise have been delivering big on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since 2015.
Enable’s Impact Statement as at December 2019:
Issue 1: Poor employment participation rates of people with disability in Australia, with approximately 50% less likely to have a job. Unemployment is the major reason for poverty.
Impact: Delivered 31,550 hours of employability skills to 855 participants most likely to experience barriers to employment to improve their chances of getting work.
Delivering on UN SDG 1: Rights to a job, building resilience of disadvantaged and unemployed community, advocating for social enterprise in Australia as part of the eco-system to reduce barriers to employment for people with disability.
Issue 2: High Unemployment in Hume (Melbourne’s north), this is 53% higher than the Australian average. Poverty is the major cause of housing stress and homelessness.
Impact: Created 8,858 paid work hours to support local economic development and 15 Employment Pathway outcomes through Enable’s enterprise trade, supporting local disadvantaged and economic development across Melbourne’s north. Read the full article here.
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Learning Creates
A New Model of Measuring Learning Success of Young Learners in Australia beyond the ATAR and NAPLAN Data
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Jac from the Wyndham Learning Community team has been contributing to a national project called ‘Learning Creates’. Utilising a social lab model, the project includes educators, researchers, government, young people and industry working together within an exploratory ecosystem.
Now in its second year, this ambitious project is striving to give agency to a new model of learning for young people in Australia. This includes looking beyond a number that is the ATAR (final VCE score) and NAPLAN results – thus this project is a new way of assessing and a new model of credentials for young people to survive and thrive in our new world. The components of this new recognition system includes new standards, new credentials, new assessments, learner ambitions and leaner metrics. It focuses on having a Learner Profile which represents who the student is beyond a number. Learning Creates wants to go one step further and prototype some of the new ways of operating. This project is continuing in 2021, and it is exciting for the Wyndham Learning Community team to be contributing to this innovative pilot. For more information, follow this link: https://www.learningcreates.org.au/
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Feature Paper - Learning Cities In Australia: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Written by Peter Kearns
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It is salutary to reflect on the things we do from time to time, especially when this involves worthwhile ideas such as learning cities. Even the most worthy of ideals date with the passage of time so we need to reflect, and discuss, how we revitalise our ideals in this turbulent world of disruptive changes.
I have been involved in the development of learning cities in Australia from the early days. This included ten years on the Board of the Hume Global Learning Village, so I observed the impact of this vision of the Hume community over some time. I have then been involved in the development of learning cities and neighbourhoods in various parts of the world - especially East Asia and Western Europe - through my work for the PASCAL International Observatory. This included founding the PASCAL PIE program of Exchanges between Learning Cities, and EcCoWell as an approach to integrated and holistic development. This experience guides my thinking on the future, and my reflections on the Australian story of learning cities.
Yesterday
The arrival of learning cities in Australia was an exciting time, as the birth of new ideals usually are. Some international examples, including knowledge of what the European Commission was doing in this area, inspired a surge of interest across Australia. New movements need leaders, so that the leadership role of Jim Saleeba and the CEO of Wodonga City Council, fed this initial wave which led to the formation of the Australian Learning Communities Network.
This initial stage of learning city development in Australia generally involved two ideas:
- We should harness all the resources of cities - local government, civil society, education institutions and other resources - to extend learning opportunities to all residents of the city, including disadvantaged groups; and
- We need to use learning strategies to build community and social cohesion in the city.
I will address later in the paper whether our thinking about the future of learning cities requires us to broaden and deepen these themes.
Following the establishment of ALCN, annual conferences were held in places like Albury Wodonga, Adelaide, and Newcastle with significant numbers participating. A critical feature of the learning cities Australia story was that development depended on local development inspired by local “believers” with little support from national and state governments. This resulted in a patchy pattern of development with large areas not serviced by learning cities. Most of the early development was in Victoria and South Australia. Read the full article here.
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Dates for Your Diary
Presentation and AGM
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This year’s AGM is on 11 May 2021 at 2pm. It is held online. It will start with a presentation by Peter Kearns, AM about Learning Cities in Australia: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. In his paper above, Peter outlines 12 steps towards a sustainable future for learning cities in a learning society. Peter asks that we consider these points as a starting point for discussion. Also, Jac Torres-Gomez, Learning Communities Officer, Wyndham City Council who was mentored by Peter as part of a PASCAL International Observatory project will reflect on the successful ingredients of empathic partnerships in the development of learning communities. Jac’s work entitled - A Recipe for Empathy Partnerships – has been published on the prestigious Qatar Foundation’s WISE site. Read more here.
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Articles following the digital theme:
- eSafety Commissioner (February, 2021). "The digital lives of Aussie Teens." from https://apo.org.au/node/310831.
- McKnight, L. (10 February, 2020). To succeed in an AI world, students must learn the human traits of writing. The Conversation. Melbourne. Retrieved from this link.
- Thomas, J., et al. (2020). Measuring Australia's Digital Divide. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index 2020. RMIT and Swinburne University of Technology for Telstra. Retrieved from https://digitalinclusionindex.org.au/the-index-report/report/
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The Global Learning Festival is returning, and the dates are 8-11 November 2021. For examples of learning opportunities to give you ideas on what you might offer go to https://www.globallearningfestival.com/. To find out how more, please contact Diane Tabbagh – Wyndham City Council ([email protected]).
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Funding Opportunities - Community Grants Hub
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To ensure you are up-to-date on Community Grants that may be available make sure you subscribe to the Commonwealth Governments Community Grants hub for notification of upcoming grants https://www.communitygrants.gov.au/. This site provides updates on grants available across a range of Commonwealth departments.
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