The Australian Government has established a Digital Education Revolution website at http://www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au/. The main items on the site at present are a definition of the program as it relates to Australian schools, some information about the broadband fibre scheme, a short FAQ page, and information about a subscription service that will notify subscribers of significant updates to the website.
The Australian Commonwealth Government is committing new funding of $1 billion over four years to “contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching and learning in Australian schools”.
The timeline for the first round of the provision of computers and other ICT equipment to secondary schools in greatest need is a pretty short one, with the first deliveries to be in place by June 2008. Education authorities are currently conducting a survey to identify the schools in need, who will then be asked to submit an application. A second round of applications will open to all Australian secondary schools in July 2008.
Other elements in the policy:
- development of online curriculum content that will support national curriculum and conferencing facilities for special subjects
- training new and continuing teachers in the uses of ICT
- development of web portals so that parents can participate in their child’s education
The program is already sparking debate among teachers in Australian schools about the implications of the scheme for classroom practice. Bandwidth inadequacy for example has been a real stumbling block in a very large proportion of schools, but addressing this is probably not going to be a lot of use in some if elderly cabling, as well as low capacity computers, within the school is not replaced. Other issues that have been identified are the need to increase storage space for teachers, allow access by teachers to school curriculum and administration servers from home, and software and hardware issues for teachers who in general prepare at home.
Perhaps if you are an Australian educator reading this blog, you might like to comment on the issues as you see them.
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Follow up article
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/NewsStory.aspx?story=69592
Senator Gillard calls for participation in Labor’s $1B Digital Education revolution
Another article
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23222106-12332,00.html
Low-fee private schools among first for computers
MANY low-fee private schools suffer severe computer shortages and will be among the first to receive handouts under the Rudd Government’s $1billion computers-in-schools fund.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday said a nationwide audit had identified “a huge disparity” between schools, with not all of those in greatest need hailing from the state school sector.
An interesting discussion is developing about the Digital Education Revolution over here:
http://paralleldivergence.com/2008/06/01/australias-digital-education-revolution/
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