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Initiated and funded by AusAID to support its Global Education Program. This is an Australian website with an Australian focus on world issues. The objective of the Global Education Website is to increase the amount and quality of teaching of global education in Australian primary and secondary schools. The site supports the AusAID Global Education Program which aims to raise awareness and understanding among Australian school students of international issues, development and poverty, and to prepare them to live in an increasingly globalised world and to be active citizens shaping better futures.

"This resource is a national initiative for the improvement of English and literacy education from Foundation to Year 10, produced in partnership with Education Services Australia and the joint associations of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, the Australian Literacy Educators' Association and the Primary English Teaching Association Australia, representing more than 10,000 teachers of English."

"The online environment is an integral part of modern economic and social activities, and a vast resource of education, information, communication and entertainment. Further, the evolution of new technologies is diversifying the ways in which Australians connect with each other and the world. As part of the Government's comprehensive commitment to cyber-safety, the Australian Parliament established this Committee in March 2010. This report focuses on how young people can be empowered and connect to the Internet, and use new technologies with confidence, knowing that they can use them safely, ethically and with full awareness of risks and benefits. The facilitation of safer online environments requires government, industry and the broader community to work together to realise the benefits of the online environment while also protecting Australians from dangers and enabling them to use existing and emerging tools to mitigate risks.  

Treasure Explorer is a rich educational website where students and teachers contribute socially and engage with Australian history. Treasure Explorer contributes to the National Library's important role of disseminating Australia's cultural heritage, for all Australians. It is an invaluable and creative networking tool for teachers, families and students to share and celebrate knowledge, passion and ideas about Australia. Treasure Explorer also provides an online resource to find out more about the objects, archives and stories represented in the National Library of Australia's Treasures Gallery in Canberra. Treasure Explorer was launched in October 2011. Development of this website was made possible by the generous funding of the Harold Mitchell Foundation.

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

An article about coding in the Australian curriculum. Bec Spink lists here yhe content descriptions taken directly from the Australian 'Digital Technologies' curriculum that demonstrate the progression of SOME of the process and production skills students are expected to learn from their first year of school until Year 10.

"Five years ago every computer in an Australian school ran Microsoft software. But search giant Google is now looking to corner the $2.5 billion market for technology in Australian schools and universities with cheap software and laptops. Thousands of Chromebooks, laptops manufactured by vendors Samsung and HP that come with Google's Chrome web browser and software, have been deployed into primary and secondary schools as technology administrators look for cheap alternatives to replace aging computers handed out under the Rudd Government's $2.4 billion Digital Education Revolution."

Sue Waters list of educators based in Australia who are on Twitter

DERN is the Digital Education Research Network. DERN is managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in Melbourne, Australia. DERN is a network for, leaders, researchers and educators interested in the use of digital technologies for learning. Users of DERN may have an interest in ICT, media, pedagogy, emerging technologies and related areas and are probably well briefed in the area of elearning research, as well as scholars seeking details about what research has been done, possibly for their own research purposes.

How to use minecraft to teach across schools. "Minecraft is an engaging platform for creativity, computational thinking, collaboration and learning. Crafting learning opportunities in Minecraft between schools is a wonderful opportunity to develop student collaboration and ICT for learning skills. Mineclass, started by a bunch of Australian Microsoft Expert Educators, was conceived to make interschool Minecraft projects a reality"

"State education departments are unlikely to roll out iPads as part of the federal government's digital education revolution program because of the device's technical shortcomings."

"This post looks at seven startups which look to either fill in some gaps, or improve on old habits across the whole spectrum of education"

Every Australian student will study the arts from their first year of school under the new national arts curriculum, which was released today for public consultation.

"At this stage it's going to be incredibly hard for Android or even Microsoft/Windows tablets to break into the market. Apple are stated to have 94% of the educational market in the US and whilst the craze hasn't dominated Australian schools yet, the future is not far off. This means it is incredibly unlikely that Australia will reverse an already popular choice in America. Combined with a lack of development for other formats this means the iPad will soon be the tablet parents HAVE to buy."

Based on US situation but still applicable to Australian situation. "Despite the increasing emphasis on technology as a learning tool in the classroom, many school districts still aggressively filter the Internet that teachers and students can access. While the federal Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires that schools filter for pornographic images, many districts are over-filtering, blocking sites that can be used positively for education. There are a lot of myths about how tight these required filters must be."

An interesting look at ICT in Australian education and the influence of professional development and conferences.

"This website is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The Safe Schools Toolkit explores the detailed characteristics of the National Safe Schools Framework, providing case studies and an online audit tool to pinpoint the areas of priority."

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."

"This animation was produced on behalf of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, and aims at encouraging education leaders to develop a framework for teachers learning."

"Presented by well known science educator, Sean M Elliott, Rough Science is a digital learning environment that explores three exciting Australian Curriculum Year 5 & 6 science topics: Layers of the Earth; Solid, Liquid & Gas; and Adaptation & Evolution. Each unit is comprised of a short video and a creative challenge. The App is accompanied by a free Rough Science Teacher Handbook, available from the iTunes store. "