The wisdom of the aphorism ‘you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it more’ might have finally dawned on at least three state education ministers. Last month, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria announced a review of NAPLAN, with the ...
More »Dairy education program enters 10th year
It’s time for other learning areas to mooo-ve over: Dairy Australia’s Picasso Cows program is inspiring primary-aged students to think more about the importance of dairy to their diets and where it comes from. Now in its 10th year, the ...
More »Create and your school will succeed: Sir Ken Robinson
Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 lecture, Do schools kill creativity?, is apparently the most viewed TED Talk of all time. Regardless of that claim’s veracity, it has been viewed 50,727,440 times and counting. Clearly, his words resonate. Now, he hopes to recapture audiences’ ...
More »Why PISA is moving towards creativity
Along with a relatively small number of countries such as New Zealand, Singapore and Finland and Scotland, Australia is unusual in that, as well as a focus on knowledge and skills, its national curriculum explicitly requires schools to teach certain ...
More »Kids become better poets in nature
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. The first two lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 capture the essence of a new study: poetry and nature. Researchers from Curtin University have found that ...
More »EduTECH: how to cultivate tomorrow’s leaders
Lee Watanabe Crockett strode onto the EduTECH stage to a track filled with electronic bleeps and loops. Wearing a Steve Jobs-like all black outfit and black-rimmed glasses, he looked and acted the part of a digital change maker. As president ...
More »Canberra Grammar students augment reality
Schoolkids may be eagerly awaiting the release of Pokémon GO’s new Fire and Ice event but students at Canberra Grammar School are already toying with augmented reality. Unlike Pokémon GO, however, Pearson’s HoloLens is educational and doesn’t require a mobile ...
More »Schoolboy’s PC energy-saving invention gets a world stage
CeBIT Australia, an annual congregation bring together the brightest business and technology minds to share their ideas, took place in Sydney during late May. At this year’s conference, alongside the head of Society and Innovation at the World Economic Forum; ...
More »Sydney Opera House creative learning program breakdances into action
When a learning program kicks off with a breakdancing performance and a balloon dinosaur, it’s likely to be a little different. That’s what marked the opening of the Sydney Opera House’s 2017 Kids, Families and Creative Learning program earlier this ...
More »Adelaide schoolkids join older Australians for intergenerational singalong
About 250 primary school students and older Australians coalesced in harmony this week in Adelaide, for Sing Together, a mellifluous intergenerational initiative from several organisations, including the Office for the Ageing, ACH Group’s Foundation for Older Australians and the Commonwealth Home ...
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