Forum 9: Northern Territory, August 6

Discussion with ICT in schooling representatives from the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training.

Issues and challenges

• Content filtering problematic to balance access to useful resources vs protection against copyright, security, internet safety, etc
• Bandwidth a continuing problem, especially for remote schools. Virtual learning environments problematic from both a firewall and bandwidth cost perspective
  
• Ability to attract teachers, professional development seen as important to maintain teacher quality
• Need for reform in pre-service teacher education, particularly around integration of ICTs into the curriculum
  

Advice and recommendations

• Host national strategic conversation around content filtering with accompanying report on how other systems are managing this issue
• Highlight other state and territory ICT initiatives for benefits, costs and risks - eg takeup of enterprise gmail by some systems
  
• Support for services that link authenticated resources directly into learning management systems (eg Scootle and edna web services)
  
• Continue provision of edna safe ICT spaces for teachers but consider the possibility of safe student spaces
• Highlight international research, benchmarks and significant trends in regard to ICT provision in schools. New Zealand initiatives and trends of particular interest
  
• Consider circulation of education.au 3C newsletter to schools distributed by the Department
  

Tags: edna2010 nt consultation
Posted at 09:38AM Aug 13, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  |