About the 2000 Learning Conference

This is the seventh Literacy and Education Research Network Conference. Following the enormous success of our conference in Penang, Malaysia, last September, and in response to growing demand, we have decided to run the conferences annually.

 

Since the first LERN conference was held in 1989, the conferences have gone from strength to strength. LERN conferences are community events, as well as thoughtful and scholarly occasions. They are a time of celebration and affirmation. Once again, the conference will be one of these community occasions. Melbourne is a truly global community, a community of the world. Forty-four percent of the population of State of Victoria were either born overseas or have one parent who was born overseas.

 

This year the conference is being hosted by the Faculty of Education, Language and community Services at RMIT University. The Faculty's growing reputation and expertise is focussed on the two principal areas of interest and concern at this conference: the relationship between learning and the new technologies, and learning in the context of global cultural diversity. And given the kinds of participants who will be attending, and the range of speakers who have been invited, international and cross-cultural dialogue will also be a highlight of the conference, as will be the kinds of collaborations required in an increasingly globalised world.

 

LERN conferences are also participants' conferences, with everything from plenary presentations by world renowned educators, to small workshop descriptions of practice by teachers and students, to informal conversation sessions with the keynote speakers, to a continuous program of local community arts events and visits to local educational institutions and other places of learning.

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Gain a unique insight into the world's oldest civilisation. The Learning Conference 2000 presents two unique opportunities to learn from the ancient cultures of Aboriginal Australia - living and learning in a desert community near Alice Springs (in central Australia: the week before the conference), and in a rainforest community near Cairns (in the tropical north of Australia: the week after the conference).

 

Desert Aboriginal CommunityLearning Experience < click here for details

6 days/6 nights pre-Conference stay with THE WARLPIRI PEOPLE OF THE CENTRAL DESERT. Package includes additional three nights in Alice Springs.

 

Rainforest Aboriginal Community Learning Experience < click here for details

4 days/4 nights post-Conference stay with THE DYIRBAL PEOPLE OF THE NORTH QUEENSLAND RAINFOREST. Package includes additional three nights in Cairns.