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Following on from my last feel-good link 'Stop Disaster' I received a response from a post I put up about the game at my blog - http://abcreative.posterous.com Melanie, the Manager - School Education, National Security Capability Development Division, Attorney General's Department came across the post and shared this link with me. 'Dingo Creek - the disaster' and 'Dingo Creek - The Recovery' immerses students in an emergency management situation and gets them to make decisions will change the course of the game. The great thing this has been developed for Australian students. There are also offline units and lesson resources to download from the site. Another great resource for incorporating games / simulations effectively into the curriculum.

"Australia finally has its first digital technology curriculum which is mandatory for all Australian children from Foundation, the name replacing kindergarten, to Year 8. The Technologies area now has two individual but connected compulsory subjects: Design and Technologies, where students use critical thinking to create innovative solutions for authentic problems Digital Technologies, where students using computational thinking and information systems to implement digital solutions."

The Leading Curriculum Change program will enhance teachers' knowledge, skills and confidence to effectively lead curriculum change, particularly local implementation of the Australian Curriculum.It will be a unique opportunity to learn with teachers from across Australia in a national professional learning community.Bringing curriculum to life through innovation and excellence. Teachers will experience a high quality, evidence-based, interactive online professional learning program that is designed by experts for adult learners.

Some Australians who haven't secured their wireless networks may soon be getting a (relatively friendly) visit from the police. It seems that a few officers intend to do a little wardriving in order to find unsecured networks and warn the owners of possible problems.

"Demand on wireless networks is climbing as more and more people use their mobile devices to access applications like email and Twitter. It might seem like a carbon neutral activity but Australian researchers estimate that the global energy consumption by wireless networks will grow by 460 per cent over the next two years. In emissions terms, that's the equivalent of 4.9 million extra cars on the road. Professor Rod Tucker is the director of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Energy Efficient Telecommunications, and he explained the impact of the shift to Lexi Metherell."

Mobile learning is a relatively new phenomenon and the theoretical basis is currently under development. The paper presents a pedagogical perspective of mobile learning which highlights three central features of mobile learning: authenticity, collaboration and personalisation, embedded in the unique time-space contexts of mobile learning. A pedagogical framework was developed and tested through activities in two mobile learning projects located in teacher education communities: Mobagogy, a project in which faculty staff in an Australian university developed understanding of mobile learning; and The Bird in the Hand Project, which explored the use of smartphones by student teachers and their mentors in the United Kingdom. The framework is used to critique the pedagogy in a selection of reported mobile learning scenarios, enabling an assessment of mobile activities and pedagogical approaches, and consideration of their contributions to learning from a socio-cultural perspective.

"What does privacy mean in an age of ongoing privacy breaches? With new privacy law coming online in Australia on March 12, our Privacy in Practice series explores the practical challenges facing Australian business and consumers in a world rethinking privacy."

Through its partnership with Nokia, some exciting new Windows Phone handsets are starting to hit the Australian market.  What's more, the Windows Phone Marketplace for apps is the fastest growing app store on the market as developers are beginning to cater to the potential of the Windows Phone market. Whether you're new to the Windows Phone platform or an old hand looking to discover something new, these are 25 must-have apps for WP7.

To celebrate its 80th birthday, the ABC created 80 Days That Changed Our Lives to showcase audio visual treasures from the ABC's 80-year-old archives. Large or small, a single day or months and years, moments of high drama or a gradual shift in attitude, the 80 events featured on this site were documented by the ABC because they made an impact at the time. Looking back at these moments, it's easy to see how certain events mark changes in the way Australians have lived and thought about the world and their place in it.

In some ways, the flipped model is an improvement. Research shows that tailored tutoring is more effective than lectures for understanding, mastery, and retention. But the flipped classroom doesn't come close to preparing students for the challenges of today's world and workforce. As progressive educational activist Alfie Kohn notes, great teaching isn't just about content but motivation and empowerment: Real learning gives you the mental habits, practice, and confidence to know that, in a crisis, you can count on yourself to learn something new. That's crucial in a world where, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, adults change careers (not just jobs) four to six times or where, as an Australian study predicts, 65% of today's teens will end up in careers that haven't even been invented yet. We don't need to flip the classroom. We need to make it do cartwheels.

"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."

"Back in August I predicted that newspapers in their current form will be irrelevant in Australia in 2022. That received significant international attention including from The Australian, The Guardian, Editor & Publisher (which called me the 'Wizard of Aussie') and many others. Part of the point I wanted to make was that this date is different for every country. As such I have created a Newspaper Extinction Timeline that maps out the wide diversity in how quickly we can expect newspapers to remain significant around the world."

"What I gained from this exercise was a thorough understanding of issues surrounding Cloud Computing and the information I needed to be able to speak confidently with my school community about the move we were making. If you're a school looking to move into the Cloud Computing space, then measures like this are necessary. If you're an Australian school looking for links to assist you with the process, then take a look at the following."

"The animals found in the south eastern Australian State of Victoria are unique and diverse. Detailed descriptions of animals, maps of distribution, and endangered species status combine with stunning imagery and sounds to provide a valuable reference that can be used in urban, bush and coastal environments. The content has been developed by scientists at Museum Victoria, Australia's largest public museum organisation. The app holds descriptions of over 700 species encompassing birds, fishes, frogs, lizards, snakes, mammals, freshwater, terrestrial and marine invertebrates, spiders, and insects including butterflies. From animals found in rockpools, minibeasts in your garden, to wildlife you might see in the bush. We've put in a lot of species, but it's still a fraction of the complete fauna of Victoria. Our scientists will continue to add additional species and refine descriptions over time."

"Almost a third of all owners of a smart TV are yet to connect it to the internet, but with the web spilling out of the computer domain and into every facet of people's lives, including this 'traditional' channel, that won't remain the case for long. Data is for the Australian market as of March 2012."

"Search engines such as Google and popular cloud computing services may have been "sued out of existence" if they started in Australia, while consumers who make remixes or mash-ups of copyright songs and videos are also breaching the law. These are just some of the glaring issues with the Copyright Act that have been raised today by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) and copyright experts. The ALRC has released a new issues paper for its inquiry into whether Australia's copyright laws have kept up with the digital age."

"VIDEO games have become one of the most notable features of our culture, yet the industry receives relatively scant attention in mainstream media. This is not only curious, it is unfortunate; because many parents and carers and educators remain unnecessarily wary of this crucible of creativity. The reach of these games is expanding with the take-up of smartphones and tablet computers. A recent study by the head of media communications and technology at Bond University, Jeffrey Brand, found that about 95 per cent of Australian children under 15 play video games."

"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."

In February this year, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon announced the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) would conduct an inquiry into copyright law to make sure it was keeping pace with the digital age. The inquiry was initially flagged by former Attorney-General Robert McLelland in 2011. "Fifteen years ago no one used Google as an internet search engine, viewed YouTube videos on iPads or listened to music on their mobile phones," McLelland told the 15th Biennial Copyright Symposium on 14 October in Sydney.

Ocean Tracks is an Australian website on which students can view the tracks of marine animals in an online 3D environment. The "tracks" part of Ocean Tracks shows you where in the world tagged animals are swimming or have swum. Ocean Tracks uses the Unity browser plug-in to provide animations of the underwater views of tracked animals. You can see what bluefin tuna, swordfish, sharks, and many other fish see in 3D.