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Schools are made of people. Schools are all about people. Schools are made from the connections between people. Schools exist to serve people and make the lives of all people better.

The Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE Project aims to increase knowledge and understanding between Australia and Indonesia through school-to-school partnerships that link students in both countries.

Blueback is a beautiful metaphor for life and particularly of the life we live in schools. When looked at close up, with an eye on the details, the experience of school is one of passing and recurring cycles. When looked at from a distance, with an eye on the whole, there are elements of constancy, the throughlines which bring meaning to our experience and which have as their consequence the residuals of education. 

Sometimes, it seems everyone who ever went to school is an expert on education and has a plan to make it better. Actual teaching experience, years of professional learning and formal training are all easily swept aside. The result is an ongoing dialog around what schools should do, what teachers need to do more of or less of and how the academic success of the nation is linked to strategy x or y.

As thousands take to the streets as part of a global 'March for Science' it is worth considering the significant role that education has to play. What are the messages we need to send our students about science and what role have schools played in creating the current climate? Now seems like the time to pause and reflect on the place of science in our community and our schools.

For schools in Australia and many parts of the world, we are heading towards the end of another school term and year. That means report writing season. For the next few weeks, teachers across the country will be huddled in front of computer screens, writing reflections on the progress their learners have made. Mark books will be opened, assessments consulted, work samples will be reviewed. All so that in the first week of the long Summer vacation students can sit and read their report and make plans for how they will enhance their learning in the coming year.

I am wanting to take a slightly different approach to this weeks post. The past week has seen the latest round of PISA results and the media has had a field day. Headlines have routinely attacked students, educators and education systems in equal measure. The Canberra Times reported that "Australian school scores plummet on world stage", the Sydney Morning Herald led with "Alarm bells': Australian students record worst result in global tests" and The Weekend Australian went with "PISA global educational rankings: Schools fail on maths, science". 

With summer in the southern hemisphere, long days combined with school holidays for school teachers create the perfect opportunity to relax with a good book. Here are five great reads that might spark some curiosity and keep the brain working over the break.

"Darcy Moore is a deputy principal at a large high school in NSW, Australia."

I'd be happy to see the day when kids don't need to lug around bags heavier than them full of textbooks to and from schools.

"* Maps: Search for buildings / places on campus, see bus routes and live locations, use GPS to find where you are on the 8,180 acre campus * Directory: Search for students, faculty, and staff in the Stanford directory, tap to call or email, add them as contacts on your phone * Courses: Search for classes, find out where and when they're offered, tap to call or email the professor, enroll during open enrollment, view your courses and grades * Athletics: Get news, scores, and schedules for every Stanford varsity sport * Images: Get photo images of Stanford University, send to a friend, save as wallpaper * Events: Get information about things happening on campus * Videos: Check out Stanford content on YouTube (UTV) * News: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! News from a variety of Stanford news sources - Stanford News, the Daily, Graduate School of Business, Medicine, athletics, and more! * Stanford on iTunes U: Access thousands of Stanford audio and video recordings- including courses, faculty lectures and campus performances - in iTunes U * Library: Search the prodigious content of Stanford libraries in a variety of ways, show content availability and location, call number, view item in SearchWorks * Emergency: Call to report emergency or non-emergency, call to obtain information from the Stanford Emergency Information Hotline * 5-SURE: Call to get a safe ride home"

Very impressive use of the technology - please contact Cynthia for further information: Cynthia Rodericks Team Leader - Studio AGSM MBA Programs Australian School of Business The University of New South Wales T: +61 2 9931 9417 F: +61 2 9931 9206 E: cynthiar@agsm.edu.au www.agsm.edu.au

"Version 2.0 Moodle 2.0, our biggest release ever, is coming together after two years of development. It contains a huge number of core changes to the platform, most of which are designed to give 3rd party developers more flexibility, scalability and safety. The timetable is designed to deliver Moodle 2.0 in time for the new school year in the northern hemisphere and currently looks like this: * March 2010: Moodle 2.0 Beta release * April, May, June 2010: intensive beta testing and bug fixing (freeze on new features) * 1 July 2010: Moodle 2.0 production release You can track our current progress in detail on the Moodle 2.0 Planning document. Please remember that this document is frequently updated and details can change a lot! Draft release notes at Moodle 2.0 release notes. Please add notable items while they are fresh in your mind. The notes will be edited before the final release. System requirements Since Moodle 2.0 is such a major release, we are allowing ourselves some increases in the requirements. * PHP 5.2.8 is now the minimum version supported. (We are aware that several important linux distros are still shipping earlier versions like 5.2.6, but we need at least version 5.2.x for the new File API, and there are bugs in 5.2.7 and earlier that we could not work around.) This allows developers to write cleaner code using the more recent features of PHP, and will also improve user experience. * Databases should be one of the following: o MySQL 5.0.25 or later (InnoDB storage engine highly recommended) o PostgreSQL 8.3 or later o Oracle 10.2 or later o MS SQL 2005 or later * When upgrading to Moodle 2.0, you must have Moodle 1.9 or later. if you are using an earlier version of Moodle (eg 1.8.x) then you need to upgrade to Moodle 1.9.x first. New Community features * Community hub - Moodle.com Makes it easy for teachers to find other courses to download as templates fo