Group items tagged

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.

"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.  

"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."

"What excited me about the Digital Technologies curriculum in particular is the way that it has embraced the Digital Technologies as a way of thinking and a tool for creativity. The problem I've always had with the teaching of ICT in schools is that it has largely been seen as a tool that should be integrated to assist the teaching of other subjects - that's fine, but that's captured in the ICT General Capability in the Australian Curriculum and is very different to the study of ICT as a discipline, sometimes branded as Computer Science, Informatics, Computing or similar. Given the ubiquitous nature of ICT in our world today, it has always struck me as odd that we've relegated the understanding of ICT to being all about its use, rather than how it manages to achieve the "magic" that many people mistake it to be."

"The Dawn: a Journal for Australian Women was conceived and published by Louisa Lawson from 1888 to 1905. In the first edition she wrote "There has hitherto been no trumpet through which the concentrated voices of womankind could publish their grievances and their opinions. Raising funds to digitise Louisa Lawson's Journal for Australian Women."

This is an interesting campaign to raise funds to digitise important Australian historical records (and perhaps an interesting show for the Ed Tech Crew)

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.

"Despite repeated alerts, thousands of Australians may still lose their internet service come early next week unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago."

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.

"You've heard of the Ice Age but have you heard of the 'App Age'? Today we've released research from our 'Broadband Connected Homes' report which suggests the next generation of broadband-enabled applications will be more about connecting households to new sensors and cloud services than checking emails and social media invites. The report describes the changing environment of Australian homes, the technologies that are affecting it, and its capacity to support new applications and services. We spoke with Colin Griffith, Director of CSIRO's Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation to get his perspective on what kinds of trends we may see as a result."

"In "Toy Story 3 = Awesome!", The Australian Voices sing a song of Facebook. Composed and conducted by Artistic Director, Gordon Hamilton, this innovative new Facebook Song takes The Australian Voices where no choir has dared to go - the inner space of the Internet and the unexplored and unexpected worlds of new experiences, bizarre human relationships and pop culture adoration. This journey discovers new languages and the addictive memes and viral concepts that are attaching themselves to every facet of human life."

Amazing song about social networking.

"Published on 2 Apr 2014 Introduction to the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies. Members of the Digital Technologies Advisory Group discuss the features of the curriculum."

"Introduction to the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies. Members of the Digital Technologies Advisory Group discuss the features of the curriculum."

"The Senate has forced the Australian Electoral Commission to disclose the source code of the software that counts Senate preference votes after the organisation refused to release it in response to a freedom-of-information request. "

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.

"Australian children are among the youngest and prolific users of the internet in the world, according to a new study that compared the experience of Australian children aged 9-16 to those of their European counterparts."

"The Atlas of Living Australia is a national initiative focused on making Australia's biodiversity information more accessible and useable online. It is a partnership between CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, the Australian natural history collections community and the Australian Government."

"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."

"An Australian teen has caused havoc on Twitter by discovering an "exploit" that hit thousands of users, including US President Barack Obama's press secretary, and resulted in the tweets of a former British PM's wife linking to hardcore porn."

Interesting to consider how this student reacted when he found the exploit and what he then did (and didnt do). Great discussion for the IT classroom.

"In the Australian Curriculum students develop ICT competence as they learn to use ICT effectively and appropriately when investigating, creating and communicating ideas and information at school, at home, at work and in their communities.

Teaching for Effective Learning (TfEL) describes the DECD position on pedagogy-the teaching and learning practice that leads to improved student engagement and achievement. Together with the new Australian Curriculum, the TfEL Framework provides the basis for the ongoing development of teaching and learning practices in South Australia.