Connected Schools

Most schools know the risk exists - few have real visibility over where student data goes, who can access it, or whether their current setup would withstand scrutiny. Meanwhile, teachers need fast, flexible access to new EdTech tools, and that tension isn't going away.

Wonde, whose platform helps over 30,000 schools manage and protect the data that flows between their systems and third-party tools, hosts this practical session with guest speaker William Fleming - nearly a decade leading cybersecurity at the Victorian Department of Education, now consulting independently - to help school leaders and IT staff understand where they stand and what meaningful progress actually looks like.

You'll leave with:

• A realistic first step toward real visibility over your student data
• A framework for balancing teacher demand for new EdTech with your data responsibilities
• What the Department's cyber security expectations mean in practice - and where schools are still largely on their own
• What "good" looks like in 12 months, and the changes that make the biggest practical difference

Trust is becoming a clear enabler and barrier to educators, students, and institutions engaging with generative AI. Do we trust that the AI tools used in education will be pedagogically meaningful? Can teachers trust that students will benefit from their use? How do we trust that edtech designers and providers are driven by the interests of educators and students? In this session, we will explore a cross-sector collaboration between the Catholic Education Network of Australia and the University of Sydney driven by a shared belief that teachers should be drivers, not passengers, in the AI journey. We will discuss the ups and downs of working across sectors on a common AI platform that now reaches over 300 institutions and 150,000 students, and the lessons learnt around breaking barriers, bringing educators on board, and shared values.

Controversially, AI systems are neither truly artificial nor genuinely intelligent; they are the product of human design, trained on human data, and guided by human decisions. What we are really dealing with is algorithmic influence, systems that shape behaviour, decision-making, and learning outcomes at scale.

Importantly, the session will connect these realities to governance frameworks such as ISO/IEC 42001, providing a practical lens on how schools can move from passive adoption to defensible, structured oversight of AI systems. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of risk, accountability, and the controls required to ensure these technologies serve education, rather than quietly reshape it.

Join our panel of IT experts as they tackle the real-world challenges of modernizing infrastructure—spanning both cloud-native and robust on-prem environments. We’ll discuss the practical realities of shifting to arm64 (and how big a disruption this will be on printing), modernizing the print stack, and rethinking student quotas and cost recovery. Expect a candid conversation on balancing BYOD with privacy, killing off technical debt, and redefining what a "successful deployment" actually looks like today.

• The End of Hard Quotas: Why modern IT is replacing strict student quotas with visibility-driven internal reporting and behavioral nudges.
• Cloud vs. On-Prem Realities: A candid look at the "must-have" features cloud adopters happily left behind, versus the server capabilities on-prem users still rely on.
• Securing BYOD: Practical strategies for balancing user device freedom with the growing demands of data privacy and control.
• Redefining Success: How the benchmark for a "successful deployment" has shifted from basic uptime to seamless user experiences and agile provisioning.
• Killing Technical Debt: The legacy systems and processes our panel is most excited to eliminate in the next 12 months to make way for arm64.
• Network Evolution: A look at how network design and implementation have fundamentally changed over the past five years across hybrid environments.

In October 2024, CEnet launched cechat — a purpose-built AI platform for Catholic education. Seventeen months later, it is Australia's only national AI project that places students and staff side by side on the same platform, at scale. Embedded within 370 institutions, with 2500+ purpose-built agents, and 118,000+ conversations logged, the data set is rich and the lessons are real.

This session shares what worked, what surprised us, and what we'd do differently. It features a short walk through of the hard-won insights from designing, deploying, and governing AI across organisations spanning metropolitan, regional, and remote communities in Australia.Key lessons explored include: why curriculum alignment determines whether AI tools get used; why hierarchical governance (HQ → diocese → school → classroom) was non-negotiable for earning trust with parents and regulators; what happens when students actually use AI in a walled garden with real-time content flagging and escalation pathways; and why the platform that wins isn't always the most complex, it's the one educators trust enough to put in front of children.

This is not a product pitch. It's a frank account of building the only national AI platform where a Year 5 student practising narrative writing and a principal assessing excursion risk are on the same system, governed by the same framework, and supported by the same architecture.

• connection and collaboration is the foundation of the modern school
• security only works when it’s built into the network, not bolted on
• digital capability must be safe before it can scale
• your community is your greatest asset but your biggest threat 

 Weak and forgotten passwords drain IT, fuel security risks, and steal instructional time.         Addressing passwords is just the start; securing student identities is an imperative for future-   ready schools. Join this session to learn how to chart a realistic path to secure authentication.

   You will learn how to:

•     Reclaim time: Deploy fast, typing-free access (SSO) so students spend less time logging in and more time learning.
•     Stop the IT ticket grind: Automate the identity and account lifecycle to free your IT help desk for strategic innovation.
•     Secure access for the classroom: Layer security for any age with deviceless multi-factor authentication (no mobile needed) and adaptable policies, without blocking classroom learning.