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Video version of a report produced by Education.au's Strategic ICT Advisory Service on using technology to enable collaborative learning. An education.au project funded by the Australian Government's Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

The Victorian DEECD portal to high quality teaching and learning resources for schools. It enables teachers to Find, Use and Share Education resources. It is open to all teachers anywhere in the world and is located at www.education.vic.gov.au/teacher. It is free to use and managed by the Victorian Education Department. FUSE connects teachers to resources from across the world, Connect, Digilearn, Knowledgebank, the Learning Federation content and thousands of web resources recommended by Victorian teachers. In addition, it contains new resources provided by trusted education partners such as National Gallery of Victoria, the State Library, Museum Victoria, and Zoos Victoria. There are also access pages for students and early childhood children.

ACE was founded to provide an independent voice for educators and advance the education profession. Now, half a century later and in an increasingly complex educational environment, it is even more important that the voices of those who educate our nation are heard and that they have a forum in which to inform themselves; discuss and debate issues; and seek to find shared solutions to current educational questions.

This 2009 report from Education.au looks at the current state of play regarding the use of Web 2.0 services across each of the education authorities in Australia. It aims to identify and suggest ways to overcome barriers associated with current site blocking practices in schools with regards to Web 2.0 services. The report draws on a range of survey and other investigations as well as consultation with key stakeholders. It then sets out a number of recommendations aimed at addressing issues related to current site blocking practices in schools place on teachers looking to use Web 2.0 to improve teaching and learning.

"Asian students are attracted by what US colleges offer; an outstanding education, safe residential communities, an extraordinary network of influential alumni and a degree from a university with a global brand. It's the total package, and it's seen as a higher quality education than that offered by Australian universities. Or indeed anywhere else."

"The ACCE is the national professional body for those involved in the use of information and communications technology in education. This includes educators who teach computing / information technology subjects as well as all educators who strive to improve student learning outcomes through the powerful use of ICT."

A national professional body for ICT and eLearning in Education.

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.

Connect Secondary is an education site (DEECD - Department of Education and Early Childhood Education) designed to help you locate great resources to help you study.

"In order to convince teachers of the possible benefits of using a new technology, such as Twitter, we decided to look for evidence of its qualities. What in particular, does Twitter offer educators? Is it worth getting involved?" 30 leading educators (with an interest in educational technology) were identified. They were the ones who were currently using Twitter. The study analysed samples of their tweets in order to determine their purpose and the possible benefits of the tweets to their followers. Also examined were a sample of tweets from the twitter streams of two popular educational hashtags: #edchat and #edtech, in order to determine what 'followers' may gain."

"The Compact: Roles and responsibilities in Victorian government school education (the Compact) was developed in support of the Victorian Government's school education reform agenda"

IN Australia, primary school teachers receive, on average, 17 hours of mandatory music education in their teacher education courses. In South Australia it is even less. In Finland it is 270 hours. What is 17 hours of music education supposed to achieve? One has to ask: Why bother?

"The Learning On Line website presents the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's advice for schools on cybersafety and educating young people to be responsible users of mobile and digital technologies. This website has been developed to help schools make the most of the opportunities presented by new developments in, and increased accessibility to digital technologies. At the same time it aims to support schools to minimise risks that may arise through the use of these technologies."

Website for Cybersafety by DEECD for Victorian Schools.

The intersections of curriculum development: music, ICT and Australian music education

The 'SIF AU' project is introducing the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) into Australia. It represents a joint effort and commitment by all Australian school systems to develop an Australian implementation. The SIF Association AU will deliver a practical solution to allow vendor products to work together at the school and school system level and make it easier for schools, teachers and education authorities to access the data that they need.

These are testing times for parents, students, principals and teachers. Share your experiences of schools and the education system with Anna Patty, the education editor for The Sydney Morning Herald

"Digital Learning and Teaching Victoria (DLTV) replaces ICT in Education Victoria and the Victorian IT Teachers' Association. This new association will deliver professional support and networking opportunities to all educators from pre-service teachers to principals, from the early years to careers."