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UNSW offers training for staff in various aspects of NXT Lego robots. Seems to have workshops each year.

UNSW Computing has developed specialised robotic workshops for school students. They focus on the use of the new Lego NXT technology combined with the popular RoboCup Junior competition for schools. This results in some serious fun for students.

From the library to the dorm room to a friend's computer, it's not uncommon for college students to find themselves using a different computer all the time. Putting small and versatile apps on flash drives allows students to take their important programs with them wherever they go. The following portable apps cover everything from documents to note-taking to organization to security to helpful tools and more, are all small enough to go anywhere, and cost absolutely nothing.

"Dropbox has been one of those extremely useful online tools for me over the past couple years and keeps getting better as time goes on. For those of you who aren't familiar with the program, it basically is a file sharing app. Once installed onto a couple computers, it then creates a folder on each user's system and syncs any files that are added into the folder. "

Excellent example of how different computing files can be synchronised between computers and shared. Free for PC's & Macs (2 GB). There is a version for the iPhone as well but seems pricey.

From the Queensbury Union Free School District comes this Moodle based 21st Century Technology Skills course. The 10 Week Computer Literacy Course for 6th grade students covers Understanding Computers | Digital Literacy | Digital Citizenship | Cyber Safety

"The Australian Council for Computers in Education and ECAWA, the Educational Computing Association of Western Australia invite you to join us in Perth for ACEC 2012. This major event on the regional education calendar will be held from Tuesday October 2nd to Friday October 5th 2012 and will feature prominent Australian and international speakers."

In the future but worth bookmarking your interest and details now on this place-holder webpage.

"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.

"If she hadn't been wearing a visitor tag, he'd have mistaken her for a fellow high school student. He'd been volunteered to fix the library's computers for extra credit. Fixing meant cleaning off spyware and gum, and popping the key letters back into their proper order. He didn't mind, though. It gave him a chance to use the computers alone. And he would have used them alone for the rest of his life, if Ms. Kelly hadn't shown up dragging a handcart overloaded with boxes of printer paper .."

"With support from the Governor 's Productivity Investment Fund and the Virginia Department of Education, Radford University and participating schools in southwestern Virginia are exploring how the iPod Touch can be used to enhance effective teaching and learning. As school systems struggle with how best to deal with this cultural and technological shift, it is highly likely that the technology will continue to progress towards more powerful, wireless handheld computers that can deliver high quality, multimedia, computer processing power. " This site has links to games that have been developed as well as videos of iPods in use in schools.

Traditional methods of teaching maths have more in common with how we programme a computer that what we might do if we wanted to engage our students in mathematical thinking. We shouldn't be overly surprised then when our students consider mathematics to be all about learning a set of rules that they need to apply in the right order so as to output the correct response. But is there a better way?

He is 16, an Australian living in London and recently scored $US250,000 in investment from a billionaire for a technology that could change the way we read emails, news articles or any other text on our computers.

"What does privacy mean in an age of ongoing privacy breaches? With new privacy law coming online in Australia on March 12, our Privacy in Practice series explores the practical challenges facing Australian business and consumers in a world rethinking privacy."

"The "Unplugged" project, based at Canterbury University,uses activities, games, magic tricks and competitions toshow children the kind of thinking that is expected of acomputer scientist. All of the activities are available freeof charge at csunplugged.org ... This paper will explore why this approach has become popular, and describe developments and adaptations thatare being used for outreach and teaching around NewZealand, as well as internationally."

"It is usually around whether that is where you want to spend the money, as opposed to whether it is a good idea or not."

Cloud Computing

not been idle. They had been hearing about this new thing called a COMPUTER!

The roll-out will begin this year (2009) with all public high school teachers having a laptop by 2012. The roll-out to teachers complements the laptop program for the state's 197,000 senior high school students. It means that students and teachers will use the same type of laptop, giving teachers compatibility in planning and delivering lessons electronically. The Department of Education and Training is currently assessing tender submissions for the supply of laptops in NSW public high schools. It expects to award a contract by the end of February 2009. As part of the $44 million package, primary schools will receive 20,000 more computers over four years. This will provide students and teachers with access to the most up-to-date technology in the early school years.

This article from Doug Johnson in the ISTE Learning and Leading Journal is a great summary of why schools should be seriously considering cloud computing. The article is also downloadable.