The pitch
Involved in Australian education, whether formally or informally? Making use of Python in your classes, workshops or other activities? Interested in sharing your efforts with other Australian educators, and with the developers that create the tools you use? Able to get to the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre on Friday August 12th, 2016?
Then please consider submitting a proposal to speak at the Python in Australian Education seminar at PyCon Australia 2016! More information about the seminar can be found here, while details of the submission process are on the main Call for Proposals page.
Submissions close on Sunday May 8th, but may be edited further after submission (including during the proposal review process based on feedback from reviewers).
PyCon Australia is a community-run conference, so everyone involved is a volunteer (organisers, reviewers, and speakers alike), but accepted speakers are eligible for discounted (or even free) registration, and assistance with other costs is also available to help ensure the conference doesn't miss out on excellent presentations due to financial need (for teachers needing to persuade skeptical school administrators, this assistance may extend to contributing towards the costs of engaging a substitute teacher for the day).
The background
At PyCon Australia 2014, James Curran presented an excellent keynote on "Python for Every Child in Australia", covering some of the history of the National Computer Science School, the development of Australia's National Digital Curriculum (finally approved in September 2015), and the opportunity this represented to introduce the next generation of students to computational thinking in general, and Python in particular.
Encouraged by both Dr Curran's keynote at PyCon Australia, and Professor Lorena Barba's "If There's Computational Thinking, There's Computational Learning" keynote at SciPy 2014, it was my honour and privilege in 2015 not only to invite Carrie Anne Philbin, Education Pioneer at the UK's Raspberry Pi Foundation, to speak at the main conference (on "Designed for Education: a Python Solution"), but also to invite her to keynote the inaugural Python in Australian Education seminar. With the support of the Python Software Foundation and Code Club Australia, Carrie Anne joined QSITE's Peter Whitehouse, Code Club Australia's Kelly Tagalan, and several other local educators, authors and community workshop organisers to present an informative, inspirational and sometimes challenging series of talks.
For 2016, we have a new location in Melbourne (PyCon Australia has a two year rotation in each city, and the Education seminar was launched during the second year in Brisbane), a new co-organiser (Katie Bell of Grok Learning and the National Computer Science School), and a Call for Proposals and financial assistance program that are fully integrated with those for the main conference.
As with the main conference, however, the Python in Australian Education seminar is designed around the idea of real world practitioners sharing information with each other about their day to day experiences, what has worked well for them, and what hasn't, and creating personal connections that can help facilitate additional collaboration throughout the year.
So, in addition to encouraging people to submit their own proposals, I'd also encourage folks to talk to their friends and peers that they'd like to see presenting, and see if they're interested in participating.