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The 2015–2020 English Prescriptions document will be available on the Board’s website from the beginning of Term 3, 2013. The revised document includes changes to electives, the addition of new texts and the relocation of some current texts. The revised Prescriptions also recognises the need for stability in HSC English teaching and learning programs as the majority of texts will be familiar from previous Prescriptions lists. Annotations will be available for texts prescribed for the first time while the annotations for texts that remain but have moved will be updated to reflect their new elective focus.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has released the Draft Australian Curriculum: Technologies Foundation to Year 10 for public consultation until Friday 10 May 2013. The draft curriculum is available on the consultation portal of the Australian Curriculum website along with an online questionnaire.
The Draft Australian Curriculum: Technologies Foundation to Year 10 has been written for the distinct but related subjects of Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies. Following consultation, all feedback will be analysed and used to revise the draft curriculum.
"The findings of a national review of ICT in education with a view to the future were presented to the New Zealand (NZ) Parliament by its Education and Science Committee, in late 2012. The report Inquiry into 21st century learning environments and digital literacy is a forward thinking and comprehensive commentary by a group who received over 90 submissions and heard from several experts. The review’s report covers areas such as research, evidence about teaching and learning, buildings and learning hubs, teacher training, professional learning, online content, 21st century skills, equity, internet access, and policy and regulation changes that need to occur for education to embrace teaching and learning using ICT."
There is little evidence of real differences between the male and female brains, writes Catherine Armitage.
"Learn it in 5 is a powerful library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, for the purpose of helping teachers and students create classroom strategies for today's 21st century's digital classroom. These step-by-step how-to videos walk teachers through Web 2.0 technology, demonstrating how to use Web 2.0 applications like blogs, social networks, podcasts, interactive videos, wikis, slide sharing and much more."
Reports released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) reveal disappointing results for Australia in the latest international study of mathematics and science achievement, and in Australia’s first ever international assessment of reading at primary school level.
Releasing the results, ACER Chief Executive Professor Geoff Masters said, “To say the results are disappointing is an understatement”.
"While the decision to share these positive results is a direct result of the positive impact on student learning, it is also important to realize the impact this initiative is having with teachers. I’ve never observed anything else that has had the impact on teacher personal learning like an iPad classroom." Fred Sitkins shares his observations under the headings: A Change in Teaching Style; Direct Impact; Maximising Student learning Time; & The Journey Continues.
Via Kel Hathaway
Over the last few years K-12 schools and districts across the country have been investing heavily in iPads for classroom use. EdTechTeacher has been leading iPad professional development at many of these schools and we’ve seen firsthand how they approach iPad integration. While we’ve witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we’re struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We’re sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn’t have to make them ...
Via Carisa Kluver
The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) in the US has released its ninth report. National Educational Technology Trends: 2012: State Leadership Empowers Educators, Transforms Teaching and Learning is a rich analysis of trends with a compendium of successes. This very useful and reliable national report has no peer in other OECD countries, about the integration of digital technologies with education. The report is structured to amplify four major trends in using digital technologies in education: • Ensuring an infrastructure for learning
• Educator effectiveness
• Innovative learning models, and
• College and career preparation (p. 1). Noticeably there is no mention of specific digital devices in the report but instead an emphasis on learning environments and professional learning for teachers in order to be effective as educators to improve student learning.
What happens to college students once they graduate and make the critical transition from campus to the workplace? This video summarises the major findings. Link to full report below. Major findings: 1. The employers in our sample said they placed a high premium on graduates’ abilities for searching online, finding information with tools other than search engines, and identifying the best solution from all the information they had gathered. 2. Many college hires demonstrated computer know-how that exceeded expectations, yet we found these proficiencies also obscured the research techniques needed for solving information problems, according to our employer interviews. 3. Most college hires were prone to deliver the quickest answer they could find using a search engine, entering a few keywords, and scanning the first couple of pages of results, employers said, even though they needed newcomers to apply patience and persistence when solving information problems in the workplace. 4. Employers said they were surprised that new hires rarely used any of the more traditional forms of research, such as picking up the phone or thumbing through an annual report for informational nuggets. Instead, many relied heavily on what they found online and many rarely looked beyond their screens. 5. Graduates in our focus groups said they leveraged essential information competencies from college to help them gain an edge and save time at work when solving workplace information problems. Many of them applied techniques for evaluating the quality of content, close reading of texts, and synthesizing large quantities of content, usually found online. 6. To compensate for the gaps in their skills sets, graduates said they developed adaptive strategies for solving information problems in the workplace, often on a trial-and-error basis. Most of these strategies involved cultivating relationships with a trusted co-worker who could help them find quick answers, save time, and learn work processes. Find the full report here: "Learning Curve: How College Graduates Solve Information Problems Once They Join the Workplace," Alison J. Head, Project Information Literacy Research Report, October 15, 2012. (Two different versions available: Text with appendix, 38 pages, 5.8 MB or text without the appendix, 29 pages, 5.7 MB.) http://projectinfolit.org/publications/
"ELECTROBOARD is proud to announce that our FREE teachers conference for 2012 will be held on the 4th & 5th October 2012 simultaneously across three states NSW, QLD and VIC so register today!" This is an excellent free event to brush up on your interactive whiteboard skills and to see what others are doing.
A new report on education across developed nations shows there's still a way to go to reach the government's goal of being among the top five performers, School Education Minister Peter Garrett says. "We know we need to do more to lift our education performance including focusing on teacher quality, more power for principals and helping schools improve their results," Mr Garrett said in a statement. "The government has made it clear that all governments need to invest more in our schools so that we can reverse the decline in our results and make sure our disadvantaged students aren't being left behind." Go to the OECD's 2012 Education at a Glance report: http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012.htm
An ever-increasing number of school systems are investing in teacher leaders as a key strategy for improving learning for all students. And they should, as research shows that shared and distributed leadership can be found in most highly successful schools.
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ABC Splash brings you the best Australian content from across ABC TV and Radio plus high-quality video from around the world. A new world-class education website for Australia, packed with hundreds of videos, audio clips and games and 100% free to watch and play at home and in school. See volcanos erupt and microbats fly. Investigate fossils, megafires and worm farms. Meet fairytale monsters. Unwrap an Ancient Egyptian mummy and explore the Great Barrier Reef without getting wet!
An online presentation covering a comprehensive overview of the iPad as a part of the UDL Toolkit. With guidance on their use to create inclusive learning environments. Supported by an equally comprehensive list of links to other resources supporting use of iPads to support ALL students.
Via Spectronics
"Okay, the title is provocative, but with the demise of Netbooks many schools are fumbling around with iPads as the natural successor. I've always said wait." Read the full post to find out why.
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Rescooped by
Marita Thomson
from SCIS
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30 Habits Of Highly Effective Teachers
Via SCIS
"Years ago, I stopped grading my students. This is shocking to most educators who wonder how assessment can be done without numbers and letters. ... What makes this process so powerful is the willingness of students to use teacher feedback when they don’t perceive it as a reward or a punishment."
"Minecraft is not just a game – its a sub-culture that spills out into YouTube, music, forums, blogs and art. Of all the games available, Minecraft has qualities which allow kids to explore and imagine on an epic scale. Most significantly, there are few rules to learn – reasonable proficiency is achieved in hours. Not because the game is ‘easy’, but because the mechanics are such that a player is engaged in very very fast cause/effect feedback loops. Most of the time, when you die, it’s funny, even ironic – a result of you not thinking hard enough – not random chance."
"Teaching nonfiction to students for the first time can be challenging. Here is a great teaching strategy that use guided instruction and comic books to help students begin their understanding of nonfiction literature." This 8 min video demonstrates very clearly how Sarah Wessling uses comic book templates to help her students analyse the structure of informational texts. This method is very transferable across curriculum areas. The templates are also inlcuded to download.
For years, nothing seemed capable of turning around New Dorp High School’s dismal performance—not firing bad teachers, not flashy education technology, not after-school programs. So, faced with closure, the school’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject—one that has made New Dorp a model for educational reform.
All’s not necessarily well in the classroom even when it ends well, writes Dean Ashenden... The writer was a primary teacher in Adelaide in the sixties and a consultant to the federal education minister, Susan Ryan, from 1983 to 1985. He reflects on the changes and the stasis in schools over this time.
Professor of Education at Victoria University, Nicola Yelland, has lived and worked in Hong Kong and Singapore, and carried out research in many schools in these locations. She sees a major disconnect between the perceived and the real educational practices there, and provides some context to back up her assertions.
(A version of this article appears in the AHISA publication, Independence, Vol. 37, No. 2, October, 2012 as "Learning from the best...at tests.")
"Minus all the gadgets, smartphones, tablets, laptops and other technological devices used in an academic setting today, interactive education has long been a part of many school curricula. "From dissecting frogs to visiting museums, this hands-on educational practice has played a fundamental role in helping students grasp basic to complex concepts at every level. Reading about cultures and concepts in textbooks doesn’t quite compare to actually experiencing these concepts yourself in a place like a museum or a lab ... many technological media echo this emphasis on interactive experience as fundamental to learning." An interesting prompt to consider the benefits of interactivity to your teaching, either with or without technology.
"The Common Core standards for English Language Arts call for a significant dose of non-fiction reading, in support of reading comprehension, a finding I’ve discussed before . That requirement has led to some puzzlement (and occasional indignation). Can’t kids gain knowledge of the world from fiction as well? Information about science, history, technology, civics, geography, etc?" Daniel Willingham gives an interesting "yes and no" answer to this, based on the research.
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