Valerie Hannon is the Director of Strategy for the Innovation Unit in the United Kingdom. She has led the Unit’s work in developing its role as an innovation intermediary, designing methods and approaches to build innovative capacity.
Thought Leadership
What if we could connect with innovators who are successfully transforming education across the globe?
The Department provides the Next Practice Program to expose Victorian educators, leaders and policy makers to the experience and ideas of the world’s foremost education thinkers and innovators. The program creates opportunities for interaction and exchange of ideas and broadens the participants’ perspectives of the education landscape. It is designed to provoke thinking about new possibilities here in Victoria.
The Innovation & Next Practice Division hosts the program which includes visits from national and international thinkers and virtual conferences with leading educators.
The program aims to stimulate innovation and ultimately to inform next practice.
2010
Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and recognised worldwide as an authority on educational reform.
Yong Zhao is University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also serves as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology.
Ameeta Wattal is the Principal of Springdales School in New Delhi, India, a school of 5000 children where education is looked upon as a holistic experience to help children develop into ‘self-reliant individuals and fine human beings'.
Charles Leadbeater is renowned as one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation and his expertise is sought by companies and governments all over the world.
Founder of Ultralab in the UK, Professor Stephen Heppell runs a policy and learning consultancy which provides expertise to organisations and governments around the world.
2009
Jean Johnson is the Chief Executive of Notschool.net. She has twenty five years of experience in education, working largely with difficult and disaffected teenagers.
Jason Smith is the co-founder of TeacherTube. He has been a teacher, middle school principal, high school principal and is currently a district superintendent in Dallas, Texas.
Martin Westwell is the first Director of the Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century having previously been named as The Times "Scientist of the New Century."
Marco Torres is a high school teacher, an award winning media coach, and education technology director for San Fernando High School, one of the nation’s largest urban schools in Los Angeles.
More information
For enquiries about the Next Practice Program or to request transcripts of the presentations, contact: innovation@edumail.vic.gov.au