Elsewhere

NSW DET and Windows 7

Date Stamp:

15 October 2009

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Essentially a Microsoft promo video on the NSW DET deploying Windows 7.

National literacy and numeracy tests ‘not reliable’

Date Stamp:

13 October 2009

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Melbourne University associate professor Margaret Wu argues that the test results are too imprecise to be used as proposed by the federal government – to compare schools and identify those struggling to improve student performance.
“These are numbers. We can’t allege any school or teacher is not working based on these numbers. We don’t have the confidence these numbers show that these teachers haven’t worked hard enough because of student performance.”

The Australian

The Digital Education Revolution in NSW

Date Stamp:

31 August 2009

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Are you interested in what is happening with the Digital Education Revolution in NSW? The DET has released a public web-site with lots of information like the machine specs and software. Also check out the slightly kitschy video:

Laptops to reduce student absenteeism

Date Stamp:

26 June 2009

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STUDENT absenteeism is to plummet in high schools as wayward pupils are lured back to class by free laptops.

Source: Laptop of learning in luxury

he he… yeah right.

I work in a school with daily absenteeism of 25% or more. Laptops are not going to change this updated: I should say, they are not going to make this figure plummet, the reasons for this absenteeism are social.

Wealthy schools win cash bonanza from grants

Date Stamp:

20 June 2009

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Of course they do. The school I teach at will receive $200,000 which is being spent to reduce the size of our maintenance list. So, the spending will include carpet, painting, fixing blinds, and my favourite, fixing vinyl tiles in corridors.