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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.

"This book is designed to provide teachers and parents alike an insight into the bring-your-own-technology (BYOT) revolution sweeping across entire school communities in Australia, the US and UK, and explain the immense implications of these developments. In time all schools in the developed world will move to students using their personal mobile technology in class, rather than it being provided by the school. It is not a case of if, but when. BYOT is like a tsunami coming across the horizon. The forces impelling the change and the potential educational, social development, economic, technological and political opportunities opened by the development will not only bring about its introduction but will soon fundamentally change the nature of schooling, teaching, the technology used, home-school relations and the resourcing of schools."

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.

I'm not sure we need these skills to be taught as a separate subject. Technology has been changing the way people learn and interact for thousands of years. Many researchers argue that major innovations adopted by society have an effect on the structure of the human brain. There is little doubt that the Internet has changed the way people find information and the way they communicate. Changes to the way that students learn, and probably what they learn, need to follow.

The new web-centric PCs made by Samsung and Acer - dubbed "Chromebooks" - were announced at Google's I/O event overnight. The computers, which boot in seconds, will be available in the US and Europe next month.