By Mark Schier, Senior Lecturer (Swinburne University of Technology)

Like the attractions at the local country show from my home town – there’s something at ASCILITE for everyone.

I preferred the darts, one of my sisters played the clowns, my brother threw the hoops over the rigged bottles, my other sister loved the thrill-seeker rides, my Dad looked at cattle and machinery, and my Mum enjoyed wandering among the crafts. We all relished our hot chips and soft drinks while we watched the grand parade on the main arena in the afternoon.

ASCILITE has a similar breadth of different activities and you should be able to find things that suit your niche and you would like to be involved with – build your own adventure! As the newest member of ASCILITE executive, I thought I would try and give members a snapshot and encourage you to explore, read, interact or join in where appropriate.

There are blogs (TELall) to read and write. You found this one, so check the previous sets of ideas and thoughts others have written here. Please let us know if you want to write one.

There are 5 special interest groups (SIGS). These cover many topic areas and there may be one just waiting for you to join. There are also instructions on how to start your own if one of these misses something that you think is important to our community.

The annual conference probably goes without saying, and this year it is in Toowoomba in sunny Queensland. There are opportunities to present papers, create workshops, peer review papers, and attend as a delegate just to name a few (I must of course mention the legendary conference dinner and dancing!) Follow the link for all the details on dates, registration, and paper submission.

Webinars run regularly on all sorts of topics, and there are some coming up soon. Previous webinars can also be accessed from this location. If you have an idea for a webinar, then please follow the link here. There are also some guidelines to help you plan and create your presentation.

Brand new for 2017 the Spring into excellence research school in late September is something for everyone in the community. Ideal for new PhD students to ground and build their expertise and learn from the experts on educational technologies. All can possibly use this training to build networks and hone skills.

CMALT is for those wanting to gain international accreditation for educational technology practice. More details about the program are found here.

AJET journal. This is the ASCILITE journal that publishes refereed papers of interest to researchers and all issues are available online.

Community mentoring is a great way to expand your expertise with a mentor from within the community. Have you seen a presentation, read a paper, or have some ideas about what you would like to do next? Then start preparing for 2018 community mentoring round right now.

So, grab those darts to pop the balloons, your ping pong balls to play the clowns, order those hot chips and enjoy the grand ASCILITE parade. Every player wins a prize!