CMIS Evaluation Technology Focus

The Department of Education and Training web services will be unavailable between 5.00pm Friday 26 September and 7.00am Tuesday 30 September 2008 due to a planned Central Office power upgrade.

During these periods, all centrally delivered online services including email, internet portal and web access will be unavailable. Services provided by the ICT Customer Service Centre will also not be available. Readers of the CMIS blogs will be unable to access the CMIS website and Resource Bank. Blog links to resources hosted on the DET WA portal servers will not be available during the upgrade.

Times stated are for Perth, Western Australia (GMT+8). Use The World Clock – Time Converter to calculate your local time.

One of the world’s oldest cultures is using the most modern of technologies to communicate their stories to the rest of the world.

We are proud of our community.
We are proud of our history and our present.
We are proud of our children, and our artists, and our songmen,
we are proud of our whole place.
Because we are proud of all these things,
we are sharing them with you.

from Inside Film

…Twelve Canoes is a website which paints a compelling portrait of the art, culture, history and place of the Yolngu people whose homeland is the town of Ramingining and the Arafura Swamp of north-central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

The high-end site is a work of art in itself; honouring the people of the Arafura swamp, and built around twelve filmed “visual poems” describing and illustrating many aspects of Yolngu history, life and culture from Creation, Our Ancestors, The Macassans, First White Men, Thomson Time, The Swamp, Plants and Animals, and Seasons, to Kinship, Ceremony, Language, and a slice of contemporary life in Nowadays.

Other features of the site include galleries which showcase Ramingining art and artists, music and songmen, language and common terms, and photographs that capture the essence of life in the region. More…

The Australian National Film and Sound Archive is hosting the Twelve Canoes website.

The CMIS Resource Bank Help pages will assist you in using the Resource Bank to locate resources suited to your specific curriculum needs and your students’ phase of development.

Teachers and students who have read and enjoyed Jeannie Baker’s Window and its companion title Belonging will appreciate this project from the New South Wales Centre for Learning Innovation.

Through My Window is a simple and engaging email activity designed to allow students to communicate about their world through words and images. Descriptions are posted on the website and students from around the world may email their artistic interpretations back to the authors. Students may then evaluate their descriptions to see if the wording they have used has provided an accurate picture of their scenario.

In the Task Section at Step 3: Connect teachers can register with the Through my window coordinator who controls the posting of descriptions.  The activity model on the website could easily be used without registering to take part, although by registering children are given the opportunity to see their work published online (permission required).

In the Description Section examples of student work can be viewed by clicking the Stage 1 and Stage 2 buttons.  In the Archive section work from students can be seen at Stage 2 and Stage 3 including an interpretive view from another school.

Schools across Australia are invited to contribute to this on-going project and its companion project The Adventures of Ebenezer Q. Emu.

This is a creative activity in which students in the Early years of schooling use a story wizard to create an adventure using their own words, digital pictures and sound effects.Students also have the option of recording their words in English and another language. The story may be viewed on the computer and/or printed out for use in classrooms or school libraries.Completed adventures may be submitted to the website project manager for subsequent inclusion on the website.

The site includes ample planning and assessment assistance for teachers. Proformas are available for students to prepare their stories, children are encouraged to use sound files and clip art and there is a Library where completed stories are published.

Although both projects relate particularly to NSW Syllabus outcomes, the activities can be readily applied across several WA Learning Areas outcomes including English, The Arts, Technology and Enterprise, Mathematics, Languages, and Society and Environment.

Primary schools are invited to participate in a Cybersmart detectives activity designed to teach students about safe behaviors when using internet chat rooms and personal websites. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has adapted the online game, initially developed by UK-based child advocacy agency Childnet International,  for use in Australian schools.

In the scenario, children play the role of a school Deputy Principal concerned about the welfare of a new student, who may be being bullied by someone they have met in an internet chat room. Guided by a series of clues, children work collaboratively in teams to solve the mystery of what is worrying the student, and why. ‘Cybersmart Guides’ respond to the questions and theories posed by the students, and guide the teams through each of the ‘clues’. As the scenario unfolds, the children discuss the risks of certain online and offline behaviours, and ways of managing those risks.

• Australian Communications and Media Authority: http://www.cybersmartkids.com.au

• Netalert – the Australian Internet Safety Advisory Board: http://www.netalert.gov.au