TLDR: While we hope you’ll read this entire post, the big news is that for the first time ever, the Constructing Modern Knowledge institute will be held in Australia, August 12-15, 2025. The same mountain of stuff, cutting edge materials, powerful ideas, fantastic faculty, and four uninterrupted days of personal project development that has made CMK the global gold standard for project-based learning. Important education history innovations will be celebrated at Constructing Modern Knowledge Australia 2025. I owe Australia so very much.
Educators from the United States and across the globe are invited to join us in one of the world’s great cities, Melbourne, Australia, this August. Enrollment is limited more than in our US institutes, so please register as soon as possible. Early-bird pricing ends June 1st!
My story…
I dreamt of visiting Australia since I read This is Australia as a third grader in my suburban New Jersey public school. That dream was realized two decades later when a paper I wrote was accepted for inclusion in the proceedings of the World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE) in Sydney, Australia in July 1990. Not only did I have a reason to visit Australia, but what seemed like minutes after learning of my paper’s acceptance, I received a letter from an organization I never heard of before or since, offering to sponsor my trip.
On top of all that, I would be joined in Sydney by legendary educators and friends, including Brian Silverman, Tom Lough, Dan Watt, Molly Watt, Alan Kay, Steve Ocko and his co-inventor of LEGO robotics, Mitchel Resnick. Seymour Papert would be staying in the adjacent hotel room. The conference was a heady experience culminating in Seymour Papert’s stunning closing keynote, Perestroika and Epistemological Politics, a speech that may be even more relevant today.
Before the conference commenced at the brand new Darling Harbor Convention Centre, I attended a workshop with local educators and students from the first two schools in the world where each student had their own personal laptop computer. I had already been working in educational computing for close to a decade and I didn’t have my own laptop. During the multi-day workshop, I worked with a year seven girl to build a working LEGO fax machine and met a number of wonderfully crazy Australian educators who were in the midst of changing the world. I shared my admiration for their efforts to realize Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon’s 20 Things to Do with a Computer vision at scale and shift from a traditional teacher-centric educational system to a learner-centered model of constructionism.
Then it happened! I was invited to return to Australia the following month to help teachers at the world’s first two “laptop schools” reinvent education.
At the time (1990) the stated policy of the Queensland government was that by 1991, every student in Queensland would have a personal laptop computer. My allegiance to public education led me to suspend my disbelief and imagine that the public model in Queensland would prevail. So, on my return visit to Australia, I began my work mentoring three teachers and their three classes of students at Coombabah State Primary School to find ways to solve problems, be creative, and express themselves across the curriculum while programming in LogoWriter. The next stop on my tour was a residency at Methodist Ladies’ College Kew in Melbourne. Due to the courage, creativity, and leadership of their principal David Loader and his phenomenal teaching staff, history remembers MLC as the birthplace of truly personal computing in schools. (The history of 1:1 personal laptop computers in education has been memorialized in memos, books, and doctoral research, much of it freely available here.)
Over the next several years, I spent a great deal of time in-residence at MLC where I was trusted to do anything I thought would benefit the school. I refined my skills mentoring teachers in their own classrooms, led workshops, contributed to publications, created what became extremely successful holiday computing camps, and organized a star-studded international Logo conference in 1993. That work begun at MLC led to invitations to lead professional development and residencies in dozens of independent schools across Australia, as well as collaborations with the ACT and several state departments of education. The achievements of pioneering Aussie schools in the early 90s may have come as close as any to realizing the vision of Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon’s groundbreaking paper, Twenty Things to Do with a Computer. Students and teachers alike created projects demonstrating a new level of complexity and sophistication.
The invention and successful implementation of 1:1 laptop personal computing in schools was Australia’s gift to the world.
It should be celebrated and serve as a great source of pride.
One day I mentioned to MLC Principal David Loader that his teachers were parroting his talking points about constructionism, but had no point of reference for breathing life into those ideals in their classrooms. David asked, “What do you suggest?” I responded that we needed to create a distraction-free context where educators could take off their teacher hat, put on their learner hat, and enjoy the luxury of time to work on personally meaningful projects. Only such personal experiences held the key to making classrooms more productive contexts for learning. David replied, “FInd a venue and take thirty or so teachers away for three days.” That model of what began being referred to as “Pyjama Parties” was so successful that we ran several at MLC. I led similar institutes at other Aussie schools, most notably Sydney’s Pymble Ladies’ College one infamous long weekend in Bundanoon. Other residential learning adventures open to educators from across Australia were offered at Geelong Grammar in subsequent years.
The inspiration for the pajama parties came from my work with Dan and Molly Watt at their summer Logo Institute and ultimately evolved into the fifteen Constructing Modern Knowledge institutes I created in the United States. Over the years, a fair number of Aussie educators ventured to Manchester, New Hampshire to participate in CMK, but it was a long way from home. We are about to rectify that situation!
Constructing Modern Knowledge is coming to Australia!
I owe much of my professional life, Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, and personal satisfaction to my Australian friends and colleagues. In fact, I am grateful to Australia for allowing me to do some of the best and most rewarding work of my life. Since Constructing Modern Knowledge was incubated in Australia, it only seems right that it should be held in Australia.
For the very first time, Constructing Modern Knowledge, globally recognized as the gold standard experience for educators interested in learning-by-doing with modern materials and computational technology, will be held in Australia this 12-15 August at Westbourne Grammar School in Truganina, Victoria (just outside of Melbourne). Through the exceptional leadership and generosity of Westbourne Grammar School Principal Adrian Camm and his colleagues, Constructing Modern Knowledge will be offered on another continent. The pioneering work in the early 1:1 schools, fifteen Constructing Modern Knowledge institutes, and CMK Australia are linked by a commitment to learning-by-doing, student empowerment, computation, creativity, and a deep belief in teacher competence.
This institute is open to all Preschool – Year 12 educators and teacher educators across the public, independent, and religious school sectors.
About our hosts
Westbourne Grammar is a rapidly growing award-winning school. I have enjoyed the privilege of serving as a resident fellow in the school where I taught at all levels from 4 years-old onward, worked with teachers on curriculum development, led family workshops, and consulted on the design of their forthcoming new middle school built on Seymour Papert’s constructionism and inspired by Constructing Modern Knowledge. CMK Australia participants will benefit from Westbourne educators engaged in realizing the powerful ideas of learning-by-doing, student empowerment, computation, and having agency over an increasingly complex world. Adrian will moderate one of the panel discussions at CMK Australia!
Our guest speakers are a celebration of Aussie excellence
Constructing Modern Knowledge has long punched above its weight by featuring brilliant guest speakers to engage in conversation with participating educators. CMK Australia is no exception, except that the guest speakers will be Aussies whose wisdom, talent, and service to education deserve wider recognition.
Jeff Richardson, OAM
One of the first people I met upon arrival in Australia was Jeff Richardson. Jeff was a teacher educator and researcher at RMIT and Monash University who sought me out in order to avert a crisis. One of his graduate students wrote a paper for the WCCE conference based on an article I published and we would be sharing the dais at the conference. Ever the conscientious mentor, Jeff wanted to ensure that I would be kind to his student. Instantly, we became great friends and colleagues. Few people know that this accomplished educator has also been on Australian radio for more than forty years as the host of Australia’s legendary Coodabeen Champions. Jeff’s contribution to Aussie culture and media earned him an Order of Australia Medal. Mr. Richardson is no stranger to CMK. He was on the faculty of CMK 2011.
David Loader, OAM
If you removed the fact that David Loader committed to every student in his school owning a personal laptop computer in 1989 and that nearly every teacher in his school taught computer programming across the curriculum, David Loader would remain one of the most courageous, provocative, visionary, and consequential school principals in history. He too was honored by Queen Elizabeth with the Order of Australia Medal for his contributions to education. Following his tenure as Principal of Methodist Ladies’ College, David was Principal of Wesley College, the largest coeducational independent school in the Southern Hemisphere. One of David Loader’s books, The Inner Principal – Reflections on Educational Leadership, remains one of the boldest and most candid books ever written about school leadership. He is my friend, mentor, sparring partner, and hero. That’s why I am thrilled David will be at his second Constructing Modern Knowledge institute!
Stephen Costa
Not only is Steve Costa (now retired) a great classroom teacher and primary school administrator, but he is literally Patient Zero when it comes to 1:1 computing in schools. If you or your students have a laptop to use in the classroom, you can thank Mr. Costa. In 1989, Steve put his hand up and volunteered to teach a class of fifth graders in which each of the students would have a laptop. Not only that, but for the next three decades, Steve demonstrated how open-ended computational environments, like Logo/LogoWriter/MicroWorlds/LEGO robotics could be used to bring the curriculum to life, increase collaboration, and amplify the potential of every learner. He is an extraordinary educator and we are so lucky to have him participate in his second Constructing Modern Knowledge institute, this time in his adopted Aussie hometown.
Anne Nelson
Anne Nelson (now retired) spent 10 years as classroom teacher, 8 years as assistant principal and 10 years as principal at Melbourne’s Spensley Street Primary School. Spensley Street is an open plan, multi-aged (P-6) school with a strong and inclusive community and where students have regular opportunities to choose from a range of learning experiences based on their individual interests. For a number of years the school program has included a Tinkering Club and it has hosted a Chapter of the Imagination Foundation. Anne successfully sustained the vision of progressive education against the surmountable obstacles imposed by conventional wisdom, public school bureaucracy and political whims. When the federal government imposed standardized exams to rank, sort, and shame schools nationally, Anne and her community said, “No, thank you.” That is but one of the reasons why Spensley Street remains my favorite public school in the world and reminds me of what’s possible. Anne Nelson has been a close friend, colleague, and confidant for decades. It is exciting to have her participate in her third CMK.
Georgia Vabre
One thing that makes Spensley Street Primary School so special is their biennial school musical. Every two years ago, a group of 6th grade students go camping for the purposes of writing the school musical. The script, songs, musical score, orchestral accompaniment, sets, and costumes are all created by Spensley Street students. This original musical is performed three times. Cast members with speaking roles perform in each show, while the chorus is comprised of different students from P-6th grade appearing in one of the live productions. Every single Spensley Street student participates in the musical!
This integrated curricular project is all the more extraordinary when you consider that the school does not even have an auditorium. Their musical productions take place at other schools or in community theatres. For many years, Spensley Street leading teacher Georgia Vabre has directed the school musical, in addition to her classroom duties. We are proud to feature Georgia Vabre as a guest speaker at her first Constructing Modern Knowledge because she and her students remind us of how wondrous, creative, joyful, and great school can be.
