Bio

Mark Lamont researches, disrupts, conceptualises and works to implement curriculum reforms in the digital Age. Influenced by Dewey and Freire, his career began in Special Education in Sydney’s west. Within a dozen years, Mr Lamont had led curriculum development at three of Sydney’s new high schools as their inaugural HSC cohorts graduated. By that time, Mr Lamont was seconded by the NSW Board of Studies to work with Dr Phil Brown and Professor Gordon Stanley to implement criterion-referenced assessment, the new HSC, Stage 6 Performance Bands and a new Australian Geography and Civics syllabus. Mr Lamont also co-authored several environmental economics textbooks at the time. One of his NSW Geography Teachers’ Association (GTA) journal articles on outcomes-based assessment and reporting created a storm, causing the GTA to have to publish two versions of one edition of its journal, the version for government schools excluding Mr Lamont’s article!

When the Internet arrived in schools in the 90s, tech investors invited Mr Lamont to co-develop a global online school concept which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1999. Mr Lamont led the startup’s team to develop thousands of K-12 online resources which were subsequently licensed to Curriculum Corporation. In 2000, Mr Lamont joined the executive team of Australia’s first ISP for schools, leading efforts to deliver the first Managed Internet Service to thousands of Australian schools and millions of students abroad, offering curriculum-aligned online resources and learning tools to half of Australia’s schools.

This year, Mr Lamont’s team is applying generative Artificial Intelligence services to fill gaps in Stage 6 curriculum resources; facilitating digital design workshops across Timor Leste preschools; formally reviewing the digitisation of Australian actuary courses; analysing the extent to which digital frameworks act as a spine or a crucifix for cross-border curriculum resource alignment; and testing a new digital learning environment in Hamburg Germany, New Delhi India and Dubbo NSW, integrating learning progressions and adaptive assessments with Bloom’s taxonomy, coupled with role-based Web conferencing, enabling teachers and classes to work quietly together in Web conference settings.