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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.

LayerWise applied Additive Manufacturing (AM) to produce an award-winning Titanium total lower jaw implant reconstruction. To treat a senior patient's progressive osteomyelitis of almost the entire bone, surgeons opted for such a complete implant the first time ever. LayerWise specialists printed the patient-specific implant design incorporating articulated joints and dedicated features. The complex reconstruction has been implanted successfully. It restored the patient's facial esthetics and allowed her to regain her speech within hours. www.layerwise.com

"Images of wild animals are sent to you directly from small automatic cameras placed in remote locations. When you identify the wild animal by matching the photo with the relevant image in the Field Guide you save conservationist thousands of hours by helping to sort the images by species group. This enables scientists to analyze the data much faster and assess whether the threatened animals are increasing or decreasing."

Thanks to *Dr* Wes @wfryer for this one & congrats to him on his PhD

"Hundred Zeros is a collection of best selling eBooks that are currently free on Amazon. You can download and read any of these books on your computer, mobile phone, tablet, Kindle or inside your favorite web browser. The list is updated every hour."

The Easy Portfolio Site Builder makes it a breeze to create a student portfolio using Google Sites. No longer will you need to spend hours adding and curating students portfolio content. This is the timesaver you have been waiting for. Once authorised the script will turn all content located inside of a designated folder on your Google Drive into a new Google Site. The app will monitor your Google Drive for changes and reflect these immediately on the Google Site.

"I'm pretty sure that we're all aware of computer hackers. The real shocker comes with just how easy it is for hackers to steal your information. Today's infographic lets us regular folk know just how easy it is for our information to be tracked and potentially stolen. I have personally been guilty of being too trusting of public routers.  Since I don't have internet at home, I'll spend HOURS surfing the net, and getting personal things done at Mcdonalds, where the internet is free for the public to use. But not after reading today's infographic! It's crazy to realize that this entire time someone could have been cyber stalking my information! I'm going to have to beef up my antivirus and keep my internet time to a minimum. Seriously, for your personal and financial safety, read today's infographic and be protect your computer. The facts in today's infographic are too scary to ignore!"

Edutopia provides this neat article on Hour of Code and a brief history of coding which contains lots of embedded links to "things code".

"According to a recent survey of people in 65 countries, 73.4% of people own a smartphone. Those with smartphones check them an average of 110 times per day, which amounts to every five or six minutes spread out over a twelve hour period. Another study found a slightly higher frequency - 150 times per day. That's a lot of people with instant, constant access to email, social networking, and text messaging. Not all of them will suffer all or most of these negative effects, but the draw of checking  your phone "just one more time real quick" is obviously difficult to resist. Heck, most people don't even try to resist it, because staying connected and apprised of everything everywhere can only be a good thing, right? Let's take a look at some of the possible consequences:"

"It's a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code" and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, an innovator. We'll provide a variety of self-guided tutorials that anybody can complete, with just a web-browser, tablet, or smartphone. We'll even have unplugged tutorials for classrooms without computers. No experience is needed. "

"Learner Express is a gallery of short video modules distilled from over 350 hours in the Annenberg Learner Collection. The science topics are useful in a STEM-based curriculum, while the math topics align with the Common Core Standards. You can quickly locate 1-5 minute videos to enhance classroom or professional learning. Indexed, annotated, and linked to related resources, Learner Express embodies the best of just-in-time learning. Look for additional video modules in the future."

If you go to https://docs.google.com/demo/, you can start editing a document, a spreadsheet or a drawing and share the links with other people, so you can collaborate in real-time. Google says that the documents are only available for 24 hours from the time they are created.

The National Public Toilet Map (the Toilet Map) shows the location of more than 14,000 public and private public toilet facilities across Australia. Details of toilet facilities can also be found along major travel routes and for shorter journeys as well. Useful information is provided about each toilet, such as location, opening hours, availability of baby change rooms, accessibility for people with disabilities and the details of other nearby toilets.

Every Year 8 student at Warwick Senior High School has been given an iPod to use during class and school hours to research, access school-created information and download relevant applications. Assignments and homework can also be completed online. A huge array of applications has been made available to download, enabling students to create practice tests, learn about percentages and translate voice recordings.

Martin Dougiamas (@moodler) and Tomaz Lasic (@lasic) hosted a quick demo and call to action for the Mt. Orange School demo site right before Christmas.  As a follow up Tomaz has provided the presentation recording in Elluminate, his slide notes and the full presentation from that day http://www.twitlonger.com/show/7m04ig. The presentation focused on providing an overview of what was currently possible with the Mt. Orange School, Moodle's new demonstration site where you can get a feel for what's possible with Moodle 2.0 and well trained teaching staff.  In additional Tomaz explained that the school site in its entirety is available for download so that users can dive in deeper and play with the settings and features without affecting the live site or causing undue administration. The presentation recording is about 1 hour and the Google Docs presentation has a wealth of information included in it's speakers notes.  Be sure to check out both if you're considering Moodle 2.0 this year.

"Last week my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. I don't mean to be a spoilsport, and I don't think I'm a Luddite. I edit a newspaper that has embraced new media with creative, prizewinning gusto. I get that the Web reaches and engages a vast, global audience, that it invites participation and facilitates - up to a point - newsgathering. But before we succumb to digital idolatry, we should consider that innovation often comes at a price. And sometimes I wonder if the price is a piece of ourselves. "

An excellent read! I've been looking for more stuff on the whole Native/Immigrants nonsense, and there are some very thought provoking ideas contained in here.

Are you a 21st Century Teacher? 1. You require your students to use a variety of sources for their research projects…and they cite blogs, podcasts, and interviews they've conducted via Skype. 2. Your students work on collaborative projects…with students in Australia. (Substitute: other parts of the world for us Austns) This is a thought provoking list that has a link at the end to another article - becoming a 21st C teacher in 2 hours!

"Ogilvy Paris Innovate an Irresistible Way for Vittel to remind people to drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day. 'Vittel Refresh Cap'. A tailor made cap that pops a flag every hour to gently remind you to drink."