Wednesday 29 July 2026
Over the school holiday break, Mrs Rachel Jones and Mrs Stephanie Crockett attended the Apple Education Community Summit on the Gold Coast, Australia.
The summit was for educators from across Australasia who are striving to develop best practice in their schools through Apple technologies, making this one of the best opportunities to share ideas and experiences from across a huge range of Apple Distinguished Schools and independent educators. They were able to connect with many different schools from both New Zealand and Australia, including Rebecca Nicholas, Associate Principal at Brisbane State High School , to learn about how they are reducing tech friction by carefully selecting four core teaching and learning apps that are used commonly across all classes.
Stephanie Crockett
Stephanie was one of only 23 educators to receive her Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) award. This is an award that recognises innovative educators who use Apple technology to transform teaching and learning.
Rachel attended after recently completing the Apple Learning Coach (ALC) course. She took part in a particularly interesting session on Accessibility features led by Sandy Gardener, which highlighted accessibility as a universal design strategy. There was also an opportunity to review the oft-overlooked human and environmental impacts of AI and what responsible use of AI could look like in the future.
While a wide range of workshops were run by Apple Professional Learning Specialists, there were also many teacher-led sessions, meaning that delegates were able to share real, classroom-based experiences. All delegates were set a challenge before leaving the summit: to come up with plans for how to best implement some of the things they saw at the summit in their own learning environments.
The summit ended with Battlemania – where anyone could offer up a 'top tip' using Apple technologies. Both Stephanie and Rachel took part, with Stephanie making it through to the semi-final!
This was a fantastic opportunity for educators from across both countries to come together and share best practice, with a view to returning to their schools with fresh ideas and the confidence to better use Apple technology to create optimum conditions for learning.