Meet JB

Let me Introduce Myself

I have been teaching in both co-ed and single gender public and private Queensland secondary schools and colleges since 1989. As a contributor to a number of English text books as well as smaller contributions to Business and Geography texts, I discovered that my passion is to help students find their authorial voice and unleash their creativity both inside and outside the classroom. As Co-ordinator of a flourishing writers club that has been going for over ten years, I have seen student's discover joy in words and in finding their voice. Meetings run for two hours every Friday during term time, and in 2019 had sixty eight members. I piloted the Write the World online writing platform and my student's work has appeared in their 2016 and 2017 journals. I completed my Masters in 2014 and began a Doctoral Candidature exploring the value of a co-curricular writers group upon developing creativity and identity formation. This has been put on hold as I explore making global connections for my students and invest in integrating Global Sustainability Development Goals into the work of my writers and the curriculum.

Professional development and supporting my peers, student teachers, and new teachers are very important to me and to this end I am consistently trying to develop my skills to help them manage the development of theirs. I am an Adobe Education Leader, I hold a Cert Level 1 as a Google Educator and present practical workshops on applying digital tools in the classroom both nationally and internationally. Last year I delivered a Creative Catalyst Talk at the Adobe Education Leaders' Summit in Sydney which can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange, followed by three workshops for EdTechTeam in Townsville and a two-hour workshop at EduTech Asia in Singapore. This year, while I was unable to attend EduTech Asia, I was on the Advisory Board and was one of a panel of judges for the EduTech Asia Awards as well as a presenter and Round Table facilitator at EduTech Australia in Sydney.

In November 2018 I headed off to Helsinki to participate as a panel member of the Asia-Europe Foundation ClassNet Conference November last year brought back observations of Finnish schools to help inform my practice which you will see on my Professional Development presentations page. Based on my experience in Finland, I co-ordinated a global writing project with over a dozen schools across Asia and Europe which I shared at the Queensland School Libraries Association AGM early in 2019. This has proven to be quite exciting for teachers, writers, and parents and I was fortunate to be nominated and recognised with a Gold Award for the MSM collaboration with ASEF-EDU project, Postcards From The Edge. I was then selected to represent Australia for a second time by the ASEF to share the fruits of the project in Japan in November 2019 where 57 delegates were selected from over 1700 applications, representing 51 countries covered by the Asia-Europe region. Please visit my ASEF page to learn more about how you can become involved in the work of The Asia-Europe Foundation as we seek to develop empathy, cultural understanding, and collaboration as global citizens. You can see some pictures of the project in the carousel below.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss involvement in similar projects.

If you have read my home page, you will know that my life has radically changed and I am now working for Datacom to help teachers enhance their use of technology in the classroom. Please contact me at juliette.bentley@datacom.com.au if you would like to know more.