Education in the news

From the Age, the Victorian Institute of Teaching comes under pressure in Attack on teaching watchdog; and from the Education Age, reports on criticisms of the quality of teaching by a visiting US educator in Poor Teachers blamed for poor scores and Teachers told to take control.

From the Education SMH, an article on performance pay in Rewards may split teachers, says report; and a report on a children’s author school visit in How a book gets onto the shelves.

From The Australian Higher Education, an article on the links between higher ed and TAFE sectors in Howard backs links to TAFE; articles on the Future of Schooling report and plans for improved reporting of student achievement and school performance in School performance spelt out and Brumby ignites school debate; more on the recent OECD report on education in Aussie students left behind; and RMIT’s Christopher Scanlon on how databases are influencing book titles in A good title is vital.

TeacherTube

TeacherTube an interesting educational version of YouTube with an emphasis on k-12 education. From the Factiva database, the June issue of University Business quotes co-founder Jason Smith describe it as “an open community for all educators to share their best practices.” Smith adds that: “Our goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. It is a site to provide … professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.”

Changes to Informit

The Library subscribes to numerous Australian databases via the Informit interface. This includes A+ Education, which is the full-text version of the Australian Education Index. Informit also provides us with full-text resources such as Australian Public Affairs — Full Text and Family & Society Plus.

Over the last 12 months there have been some changes to the Informit interface so it might be a good moment review what these are and to remind ourselves of the important education resources available here.

OECD releases Education at a Glance 2007

The OECD last night released its annual snapshot of the state of education in OECD countries, Education at a Glance 2007. The report allows the comparison of education systems in spending, participation, outcomes and so on. There has been some reporting in the newspapers with the opposition highlighting a drop in education spending and the government disputing some of its findings.

You can search the news reporting in the Library’s Factiva database. The Library also has a subscription to OECD publications via SourceOECD.

Video to your desktop – pilot project

You might know that the Library makes off-air recordings from the ABC and SBS under Part VA of the Copyright Act. Staff members are able to request the Library to record upcoming programs. (The EnhanceTV website provides useful information and resources on educational television programs).

The Library has now commenced a pilot  of making off-air recordings from the AV collection available as streaming video.

Academic study and the use of internet sites

I am running classes for Foundation Studies at the moment on the evaluation of internet sites. Students brainstorm criteria to use for evaluating the scholarly suitability of internet sites and then use that criteria to make judgements about several example sites.

Issues that have cropped up have included the use of sites like Wikipedia and YouTube; the different types of professional, commercial and educational websites; the use of portals that have already made evaluations of websites; the way dated information affects different subject areas.

The second half of the class then looks at advanced Google techniques: the advanced search page, using Google to search particular sites or domains, searching terms within the titles of pages etc.

I am happy to run such classes for any of the programs within the School. Given that students are going to use Google it makes sense that we emphasise the need to be critical and proficient in the way they use it.

Library resources on trial — should we subscribe?

The Library currently has Sage Premier Collection on trial.

Sage Premier offers full-text access to about 450 peer-reviewed full text journals across 40 disciplines.