Insights and Solutions from the Global Summit Series: China

Through connecting companies with international markets, our mission at EduGrowth is to strengthen and expand the Australian EdTech sector. The first event of 2021 and first ever Global Summit Series event saw us connecting with an education audience in China. 294 people registered, tuning in from 50 countries around the world. 

Professor Shirley Alexander, University of Technology Sydney Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students), spoke to attendees about education in a post-COVID world. As higher education has had to adjust to the social restrictions of the pandemic — switching to a virtual model — and the expectations of graduate preparedness rapidly morph, Professor Alexander reflected on how institutions can incorporate digital technologies into their curriculum to stay ahead of the curve. 

 

Seven New South Wales EdTech companies also joined us to present their solutions to the global audience. They shared their innovative solutions for institutions and teachers to optimise the way they work. After the formal event, the seven companies connected with the audience in virtual expo booths. This was an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and for companies to establish connections with participants of the Chinese and Australian education sectors.

Watch the full session for Professor Shirley Alexander’s keynote presentation and the Q&A facilitated by OpenLearning Group CEO Adam Brimo.

The Future of Higher Education in a Post-COVID World

We are going to see even more change than we previously considered in education. In this keynote presentation, Professor Alexander is going to provide a brief overview of their timeline in changing learning and teaching at UTS, talk about the framework they used to make decisions, discuss how COVID is going to change the context of education, and the two iterations of their learning and teaching strategy. 

Key points

  • UTS recognised that the four key skills required for students to succeed in the workplace were digital literacy, problem solving, ability to work across disciplines, and interpersonal communication.
  • There are gains to be made in a successful transition to online learning. UTS had the highest student evaluation scores they ever had in semester 2 of 2020, and these students were 90% online. 
  • In the hybrid model, it is important to identify what should be conducted face-to-face and what should be delivered online. 
  • There are a myriad of options a university can choose to implement in order to incorporate collaborative learning: think tanks, hackathons, sponsored inventions, complexity storytelling, catalytic questioning, and so on. 

The EdTech companies that presented their solutions to an international audience

Classe365 is a unified student management software with comprehensive Student Information System, Learning Management System & Customer Relationship Management features. It is a one-stop solution for running for running and optimising forward-thinking educational institutions.

Education Perfect is based on the core concepts of self-paced learning, the spaced-repetition algorithm and the power of gamification to contribute to student engagement. They are trusted by 2000+ Australian schools and can assist with student engagement, feedback and assessment.

Scribo by Literatu gives educators and students more time, feedback and data to improve English writing skills – helping educators making evidence-based decisions and provide students with more personalised feedback.

Matific is a multi-award winning mathematics e-learning platform for schools that builds problem-solving skills and conceptual understanding in early mathematics education. Matific frees up teachers’ time to focus on their students.

OpenLearning is a complete SaaS solution for education providers and enterprises to deliver effective online social learning, employee onboarding, and workplace training.

They provide a cloud-hosted lifelong learning platform, learning design expertise, and a global marketplace of world-class courses to over 2.4 million learners across 180 countries.

Pascal Press is Australia’s leading education publisher of quality resources for teachers, students & parents. Their program Reading Eggs makes learning English interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities. Mathseeds teaches kids aged 3-9 the core maths and problem solving skills needed to be successful at school with fun, highly interactive and rewarding lessons.

A digital platform connecting students and qualified teachers with lesson management, payment tools, and secure video calling.

This program was made possible through partnership with NSW Treasury, and support from Alibaba Cloud, FutureLearn, and JMDedu.