Challenging Pedagogies: Engaging ESL students in intellectual quality. This project will investigate the potential and meaning of intellectual challenge in the enacted curriculum of middle year classes with signficant numbers of English as a second language (ESL) students. It will build on outcomes of our previous research on scaffolding and on productive pedagogies to articulate the nature of linguistic and conceptual support necessary for ESL students to engage successfully with high challeng ....Challenging Pedagogies: Engaging ESL students in intellectual quality. This project will investigate the potential and meaning of intellectual challenge in the enacted curriculum of middle year classes with signficant numbers of English as a second language (ESL) students. It will build on outcomes of our previous research on scaffolding and on productive pedagogies to articulate the nature of linguistic and conceptual support necessary for ESL students to engage successfully with high challenge tasks. In doing so, it will address the priority area of quality teaching in public schools from a classroom prespective and from the perspective of ESL students. The project has implications for teacher education and professional development.Read moreRead less
Multiliteracies, libraries and cybraries: Comparative case studies of Australia and the United States. Libraries are key sites for literacy learning. Commonwealth and state government policies stress the significance of libraries and ?information literacy?, and have called for the integration of new technologies into libraries. Despite an ongoing multi-million dollar investment in books and online connectivity, there are no large-scale studies of school libraries? transition into cyber libraries ....Multiliteracies, libraries and cybraries: Comparative case studies of Australia and the United States. Libraries are key sites for literacy learning. Commonwealth and state government policies stress the significance of libraries and ?information literacy?, and have called for the integration of new technologies into libraries. Despite an ongoing multi-million dollar investment in books and online connectivity, there are no large-scale studies of school libraries? transition into cyber libraries, or ?cybraries.? This project examines the impact of online information technologies on school libraries in two comparative sites in Australia and the US. It describes new forms of text, knowledge and literacy enabled by networked cybraries, and documents how educational systems enable and impede such developments.Read moreRead less
Being digital in school, home and community: investigating the implications of young people's engagement with ICT for education. Understanding more about young people's use of ICT at home, at school and in the community has major potential to contribute to the improvement of education. Data on young people's everyday digital literacy practices will point the way to the strategic targeting of government investment in ICT. These data will assist schools in designing their missions, trajectories an ....Being digital in school, home and community: investigating the implications of young people's engagement with ICT for education. Understanding more about young people's use of ICT at home, at school and in the community has major potential to contribute to the improvement of education. Data on young people's everyday digital literacy practices will point the way to the strategic targeting of government investment in ICT. These data will assist schools in designing their missions, trajectories and curricula. They will also interest parents, employers, community groups and the public at large. If well publicised, the study will generate pressure for more and better understanding of how to integrate the use of ICT into education programs in the future. Read moreRead less
Phonological development in child speakers of mixed language. In Northern Territory Aboriginal communities where traditional languages are mostly spoken fluently by older people, the home language for many children is a kind of mixed language combining elements of traditional languages, Kriol and English. This project will document for the first time the sound system of this language, and investigate how children's background knowledge of this sound system prepares them to learn words in English ....Phonological development in child speakers of mixed language. In Northern Territory Aboriginal communities where traditional languages are mostly spoken fluently by older people, the home language for many children is a kind of mixed language combining elements of traditional languages, Kriol and English. This project will document for the first time the sound system of this language, and investigate how children's background knowledge of this sound system prepares them to learn words in English and traditional languages. This information is important because it can help parents, teachers and speech pathologists assess and teach Aboriginal children from mixed language backgrounds.Read moreRead less