Reading the NSW Board of Studies History syllabus, I quite liked the introduction to the discipline of history. It's not often I actually am struck by an eloquent, all-encompassing yet realistic piece of text like this in such formal documents:
"History is a disciplined process of inquiry into the past that allows students to locate themselves in the broad continuum of human experience. It enables students to appreciate and enjoy the human endeavours and achievements of the past, both for their own intrinsic interest and for their legacy to later generations. History provides opportunities for students to explore human actions in a range of historical contexts and encourages them to develop understanding of motivation, causation, consequence and empathy.
The study of history provides the intellectual skills to enable students to critically analyse and interpret sources of evidence in order to construct reasoned explanations, hypotheses about the past and a rational and informed argument. History also enables students to understand, deconstruct and evaluate differing interpretations of the past. The cognitive skills of analysis, evaluation and synthesis underpin the study of history and equip students with the ability to
understand and evaluate the political, cultural and social events and issues that have shaped the world around them.
Showing posts with label NSW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSW. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Research Journal 3: The Digital Divide
I was listening to a podcast by "The Virtual Staffroom" this morning on the way to university. The topic was a fairly general discussion about integrating ICT into the classroom and some of the implications concerning curriculum and so on.
A couple of the speakers discussed the Rudd Government's election promise to provide laptops for every student in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 in public schools in Australia, and in particular detailed the implementation of this promise as it is taking place in New South Wales. According to Ben Jones, who is involved with the laptop rollout in the NSW Department of Education, all year 9 students in New South Wales would be provided with a laptop in 2010, with subsequent year 9 students being provided with the computers in 2011, 2012 and 2013, by which time the election promise would be fulfilled in New South Wales.
According to Ben Jones on "The Virtual Staffroom", the implementation is not as simple as unloading a truck full of laptops at each school. Serious consideration has been made for factors such as wireless networks and the amount of traffic they will need to support. For example, according to Mr Jones' discussion of the rollout, every wireless router in a school will be required to support up to thirty students connected at any one time. Considerations like this will ensure that the new technologies are not hampered by substandard "background" details.
Once again I find my conception of the "digital divide" shifting: if the government provides a laptop and software worth $5,500 to every student (source: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/highschool/dernsw/transforming.php), surely there should be very little concern about a "divide" at all?
If implementation of the laptop scheme runs as smoothly as the New South Wales Department of Education purports, the "digital divide", at least in schools, should be practically nonexistent. So, is the "digital divide" a mountain made out of a molehill? Is it just another buzzword used by conservative educators and commentators to create an obstacle for educational engagement with technology?
At this point, I am inclined to think so... But we'll see what the next source says!
A couple of the speakers discussed the Rudd Government's election promise to provide laptops for every student in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 in public schools in Australia, and in particular detailed the implementation of this promise as it is taking place in New South Wales. According to Ben Jones, who is involved with the laptop rollout in the NSW Department of Education, all year 9 students in New South Wales would be provided with a laptop in 2010, with subsequent year 9 students being provided with the computers in 2011, 2012 and 2013, by which time the election promise would be fulfilled in New South Wales.
According to Ben Jones on "The Virtual Staffroom", the implementation is not as simple as unloading a truck full of laptops at each school. Serious consideration has been made for factors such as wireless networks and the amount of traffic they will need to support. For example, according to Mr Jones' discussion of the rollout, every wireless router in a school will be required to support up to thirty students connected at any one time. Considerations like this will ensure that the new technologies are not hampered by substandard "background" details.
Once again I find my conception of the "digital divide" shifting: if the government provides a laptop and software worth $5,500 to every student (source: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/highschool/dernsw/transforming.php), surely there should be very little concern about a "divide" at all?
If implementation of the laptop scheme runs as smoothly as the New South Wales Department of Education purports, the "digital divide", at least in schools, should be practically nonexistent. So, is the "digital divide" a mountain made out of a molehill? Is it just another buzzword used by conservative educators and commentators to create an obstacle for educational engagement with technology?
At this point, I am inclined to think so... But we'll see what the next source says!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)