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I'm currently listening to David Rock's 'Your Brain at Work' in which he uses the metaphor of a stage and actors against a narrative of a typical day in the lives of two protagonists to explain neuroscience and how our brains function. In doing so, Rock explores what we can do to maximise our finite energy and be more mindful of how we are using our brains. This is a compelling book that has already spawned several AHA moments for me - and the two characters are still only half way through their work days! So far, the biggest take-aways for me include: - our mental 'stage' only has room for a few actors at a time - there are times of day that are better for complex tasks than others - by paying attention to your mental processes, you can control the factors that impact the way your brain functions - being 'mindful' and paying attention to your physical surrounds can give you a much-needed break from the narrative processes that would have you dwell on planning and scenarios. Am enjoying this journey immensely and will be sad when it's over. Am looking forward to learning more about how to get the most out of my 1.3 kilos or so of grey matter at my disposal.

Cultural dimensions of Indigenous participation in vocational education and training: new perspectives by Alfred Michael Dockery, Centre for Labour Market Research and Curtin University This report provides new evidence on the interrelationships between Indigenous Australians' affiliation with their traditional culture and the nature of their engagement with vocational education and training (VET). It aims to enhance our understanding of the causal channels through which culture shapes VET participation and outcomes, and vice versa, and builds on previous work presented in the author's 2009 publication, Cultural dimensions of Indigenous participation in education and training, in a number of ways. Most importantly, richer measures of culture are developed which capture separate elements of the broader concept of 'cultural attachment'. Using these measures and more recent data, previous findings relating to past educational attainment and participation in training are reassessed. Evidence is also presented on the links between cultural attachment and current participation in education and on the benefits Indigenous Australians derive from education and training, conditional upon remoteness and cultural attachment.

Wikis in education 12 April, 2012 | Interactive web services at the turn of the 21st century spawned a number of new alluring ways to use online services writes Gerry White in DERN.

My presentation at the 2011 NSW E-learning conference to which I was invited to speak.

I work in a private RTO. When can I use copyright material for my work without seeking permission from the copyright owner? Your private RTO is unlikely to have been declared an 'educational institution' under the Copyright Act 1968 10A(4) declaration and will not be operating under statutory licences that allow it to reproduce other peoples creations.Private RTO's can purchase 'blanket licences' that allow it to operate in the same way as the statutory licences. Contact the Copyright Agency Limited for detailed information.Otherwise, if a work is subject to copyright you will generally need the copyright owner's permission to reproduce it. However, listed below are several circumstances where you won't need permission:Owner gives permission Some authors, want to make their work more freely available so they put an alternative copyright statement on their work. This is often true in the VET system where there is a strong culture of collaboration. To check this - read the copyright statements on hard copy items. In the electronic environment look out for items bearing a Free for Education (FfE) or Creative Commons logo.Work is now in the public domain What is the public domain? This is where all works go when their copyright expires. In Australia, that is 70 years after the author dies. Once a work is in public domain you can use as much or as little of it as you like without the author's permission. To find out more try typing "public domain" into any major search engine.

Moodle 2.2 ships for the first time with a smartphone-friendly theme called MyMobile. This can be set either as the site's primary theme or as the default theme for mobiles. This theme by John Stabinger has been around a while but makes it into Moodle core so congratulations to John on this achievement! This is a great way to use Moodle's functionality from a mobile, a web connection is required of course as this is not a native mobile app, but it more than fills the gap while development on the official Moodle native apps continues.

This is in BETA, but looks really, really promising! A sub page module for Moodle courses, that FINALLY allows the Course Outline to be just that, and allow for sub pages with resources and activities hanging directly off them. Will save DAYS of manually linking!

like this site based in the UK has good ideas and ways of engaging people in relationship education

Professor Carlo Di Clemente who with Professor Prochaska developed the trans-theoretical stages of change model.