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Category Archives: Educationau


Australian internet access - how good is it?

December 17, 2008 – 9:31 am

Last week the ACMA Communications Report 2007-2008 tabled in Federal Parliament revealed that using the internet is an everyday experience for many Australians. 55% of Australians are identified as ‘heavy’ internet users, going online eight or more times per week.
Gone are the days too when we had to assume that dial up connections were […]

By Kerrie Smith | Comments (0)

Computer Technologies for Schools (CTFS) - a Green ICT project

December 16, 2008 – 7:15 am

The Computer Technologies for Schools project is a national project aimed at providing surplus Information and Communications Technology (ICT) equipment to government and non-government schools around Australia. The project sources ICT equipment from the public and private sector and arranges distribution to schools.
The Computer Technologies for Schools project began as part of the Prime Minister’s […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in green ICT | Comments (1)

Changing the Dictionary

December 12, 2008 – 8:03 am

I guess we are all comfortable with the idea that our language is gaining new words every day and that eventually these words will be added to our dictionaries.
The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. The same source suggests that […]

By Kerrie Smith | Comments (1)

Australia New Zealand edition of the Horizon Report

December 10, 2008 – 9:00 am

The Australian New Zealand edition of the Horizon Report was released at the beginning of last week.
Towards the end of last week Education.au released a video in which CEO Greg Black and GM Garry Putland discuss the report.  Garry was one of the Australian contributors to the report’s findings and shares his insights on the […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in teaching and learning, online technologies | Comments (0)

Lessons from Virtual Environments

December 9, 2008 – 7:31 am

Following on from yesterday’s posting I was interested to see that the latest issue of Innovate is a

” special issue on academics in virtual environments [that] focuses on the possibilities and pitfalls of teaching in virtual worlds. Our contributors offer insights into how educators exploring multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) can use the lessons learned […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Second Life, virtual environments | Comments (1)

Virtual Worlds and Education

December 8, 2008 – 9:29 am

A recently released TED video focuses on a talk Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, gave at a conference in May 2008.
He talks about living (and learning) online, and the shifts in society that are coming as more and more of us live through avatars. He sees profound changes coming.

Here are some of the […]

By Kerrie Smith | Comments (1)

Measuring 21st century skills

December 5, 2008 – 11:45 am

I’m wittering on again about 21st century skills. Should we ever come to agreement about what they are, whether they are simply old skills by a new name, or whether they are an entirely new set of things to teach, breed, develop or inculcate, how are we then going to measure them?
This is precisely what […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in teaching and learning, future schooling | Comments (0)

Summer reading

December 4, 2008 – 1:43 pm

Books and Reading is an edna Group for librarians, and teachers, who like to read. It is a public group for all those interested in children’s and young adult literature, particularly by Australian authors. The group shares lists of books.
Every year one of its members collects suggestions from a major Australian teacher librarian discussion list OZTLnet […]

By Kerrie Smith | Comments (0)

Chasing Green ICT

December 3, 2008 – 6:41 pm

The topic of Green ICT seems to be one that has recurred several times now in this blog. That’s because I think it is a very important topic. It is one where we need to create and adhere to strict guidelines, whether in our organisations or at home.
A new video from Greg Black, the CEO […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in green ICT | Comments (1)

Heads around geolocating

December 3, 2008 – 9:27 am

Geolocation is one of the new technologies listed in the recently released 2008 Horizon Report, Australia–New Zealand Edition which I wrote about in an earlier blog post.
Geolocation is defined in the following terms:
Attaching information about physical location to both our media and ourselves is becoming ever easier to do, and increasingly is being done for […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in online technologies, web 2.0, geolocating | Comments (0)