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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.

A fantastic read, if not for the fascinating history of reading education in the US. However it totally applies to the Australian context too.

Skratch is a simple program for children to use and track what books they have finished reading online.

a fantastic post about class and student blogging. Some great links for blog support and ideas. A must read if you are unsure about the widgets and sidebar. This is compulsory reading for level 3 teachers who should be considering students having their own blog.

This website has a whole range of great activities and lessons in regards to reading, writing and thinking.

A great site for setting up reading logs and book clubs with your class

Phonics games, online phonics games for students, reading and spelling games for kids and adults from Fun Fonix.com!

great overview of different approaches to integrated  Curriculum

Interactive games for art, reading, writing, maths and more!

Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL).

This looks like a great tool for reading activities. Perfect for those using ipod touches in the classroom. Just load and listen and best of all its free!

A multimedia text which evolves for use during guided reading 

A website where authors read stories - great for the interactive whiteboard stories for students aged 5 -18. 

I love comic life kids do to. A good piece not just extolling the virtues of comic life but also discusses how comics are a great source of reading material and can be engaging

Great post covering the basics of google maps. Segue...I had a great session with grade 2 integrating their map reading and story writing. Planned out a map and dropped markers on various landmarks around melb. Students in pairs were then allocated a marker with corresponding landmark and then had to write their part of the story. Best explained here http://2bornot2b.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/03/23/a-google-map-journey/.

Great article that critiques the Khan Academy and flipped classroom worth a read.

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

It disturbs me to read this and how familiar it is to what the LNP have been spruiking. Is this the future of Australian Ed?

Fantastic article that discusses the complexities of being a teacher that in an impoverished school. A must read for perspective. 

A critique of connectivism worth a read.