We are really excited to announce that our inaugural Nerd Nite Melbourne event will be held on Wednesday, 4 September 2013. Come make history with us! We will be hosted by our friends at Mr Wow’s Emporium. There will be cold beers, amazing cocktails and a even hot Cuban food truck.  Be there and be square!

 

Nerd Nite Inaugural Event
Wednesday, 4 September
at Mr Wow’s Emporium
97b Smith Street, Fitzroy
Doors 7pm/$5

 

Back to the lectures at hand:
*Presentation 1
Carbon Pricing : It Works, Bitches!
by Martin C. Jones

Description: The carbon price makes goods and services more expensive if they cause greenhouse gas emissions, but the government gives the money raised back to us. If we’re fully compensated, how is that supposed to change our behaviour? When Martin C. Jones last explained this in public, hundreds of people called him names on the internet. He’s trying again.

Bio: Martin C. Jones is an economist from Melbourne, Australia. The ‘C’ is to make him sound fancy, and it’s quicker than explaining that his Diploma of Economics from the University of Heidelberg (Germany) is equivalent to see you’re bored already. Martin works as a researcher and advocate on energy and water policy at the Consumer Utilities Advocacy Centre (CUAC), and was previously at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM), University of New South Wales, working on climate change and energy economics and policy. He tweets at @m_jns.

*Presentation #2
Why tablet devices are changing how, when and where we learn
by Matthew Riddle

Description: iPads have enjoyed a rapid take up in education since their release in 2010.  How can we best describe the learning experiences of students using tablet devices in a higher education context? How, when and where are student using them, and to what extent does this change student perceptions of learning and practices? This seminar describes a PhD project investigating questions like these, and describes qualitative methods we might use to develop rich descriptions of students using technology.  We present fragments of data collected by students themselves in a “three day experience” using diaries and cameras, as well as reflective discussions in follow up focus groups. The seminar will place this study in the context of the ways in which transformational learning spaces (Savin-Baden, 2008) and mobile technologies enact particular student-led, collaborative pedagogical designs as they are being established in a university using specific examples of learning spaces designed following principles developed with a national ALTC (OLT) funded project called Spaces for Knowledge Generation (Souter et al).

Bio: Matthew began his career in e-Learning in 1993 working on a series of award-winning projects over thirteen years at the University of Melbourne. Currently Senior Lecturer in Academic Development at La Trobe University, he spent two years as Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies at the University of Cambridge. His work promotes excellence in learning and teaching, innovations with technology, curriculum renewal and learning space design. He has a range of research interests in higher education, including student engagement and retention; student perspectives; active and collaborative learning; physical and virtual learning space design; and online role-plays. Following an OLT project on learning spaces he co-edited a book entitled Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces in Higher Education (IGI Global, 2011) and the topic of his PhD project at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education is Tablet devices in the daily learning lives of university students.

*Presentation #3
The Magic and Science of Photographic Lighting
by Sharon Blance

Description: Your camera is just a light-proof box – the real craft of photography happens outside it. Taking control of what light the camera sees is the difference between taking a picture and making a picture. We’ll look at the power of off-camera lighting: how it affects the image andhow it can evoke different moods, overpower the sun, or just help you take better Instagram pictures.

Bio: Sharon was raised in Canada and has been making pictures for as long as she can remember. Her first love was painting, but a school project to make a pinhole camera out of a shoebox sparked a lifelong fascination with the captured image. After stints living in London and New Zealand she now calls Melbourne home where she’s a photographer and co-founder of Image Workshop, a versatile photography studio working with agencies, designers and businesses to tell stories through pictures. She tweets photography-related stuff and unicorn poetry at @ImageWorkshop. www.imageworkshop.com