National assessment program : ICT literacy years 6 & 10 report 2008

This report presents the findings from the National Assessment Program – ICT literacy assessment conducted in 2008 under the auspices of the national council of education ministers, the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA). National samples of Year 6 and Year 10 students were assessed to determine their levels of confidence, creativity and skill development in the use of information and communication technologies. This report compares the results of Australian school students by state and territory and student sub-groups, and provides details of their achievement against an ICT literacy scale. It also enables the most recent achievements of students to be compared against those from the first national assessment of ICT literacy conducted in 2005. A survey of student access to, and use of, computers was conducted as part of the ICT literacy assessment and it provides an interesting insight into how students are using their access to new technologies

Why a book About Indigenous literacy education in Australia?

[Extract:] This book brings together diverse perspectives about Australian literacy education for Indigenous peoples. The editors of this volume share a long history of working in Indigenous education, both as classroom teachers and as academics, and in school and tertiary settings. As non-Indigenous (Settler) academics, we acknowledge that Indigenous educational priorities ultimately need to be driven by Indigenous people, and we must enter this space respectfully. As educators we are aware of the disparate voices in literacy education generally, but the more so in the multiplicity of Indigenous contexts. We are motivated by the need to keep nudging the conversations along, as Indigenous people determine their own ways of being literate, and as educators continue to tackle the unfinished business of growing their institutions into places where Indigenous people can come to learn successfully. For any Australian teachers and researchers in the field of education, the topic of Indigenous literacy education should be particularly significant because it concerns many of our most marginalised students. It brings our attention to one of our deepest national educational dilemmas, namely, who gets to participate fully in which education

Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities (PALLIC) building relationships: one school’s quest to raise Indigenous learners’ literacy

In 2011 to 2012, 48 schools in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland participated in the Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities (PALLIC) project. Central to this project was the establishment of positive working relationships between school principals and Indigenous community leaders in order to improve Indigenous literacy rates. Professional development in leadership skills and effective literacy instruction was provided through five professional learning modules. Participants worked together to create an action plan to support the literacy achievement of Indigenous students in their schools and communities. This article presents a case study of one participating school in Northern Queensland that successfully utilised the PALLIC framework to facilitate leadership actions and activities between Indigenous community and school leaders in order to form productive partnerships for the teaching of reading. In particular, the case study highlights the way that school leaders and Indigenous leaders established shared leadership and shared ways of learning in the school for reading outcomes of Indigenous students