Conceptualisation and enactment of critical literacy for senior high school EAL learners in Queensland, Australia : commitments, constraints and contradictions

This case study examined four teachers' understandings and teaching of Critical Literacy with senior English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners in two Queensland high schools. Despite continuous, rapid curriculum change in Australia and efforts to diminish Critical Literacy, the four teachers continued to feature it successfully in their teaching with often marginalised learners. They used critical literacy to provide access to and critique dominant language codes, and to draw on learners' diverse experiences. To a lesser extent, the teachers created opportunities for redesigning dominant texts. Implications are important for policy production and interpretation, school planning and teacher professional development.

Tools, building blocks, and rewards : traditional media organizations learn to engage with productive audiences

This paper explores how traditional media organizations (such as magazines, music, film, books, and newspapers) develop routines for coping with an increasingly productive audience. While previous studies have reported on how such organizations have been affected by digital technologies, this study makes a contribution to this literature by being one of the first to show how organizational routines for engaging with an increasingly productive audience actually emerge and diffuse between industries. The paper explores to what extent routines employed by two traditional media organizations have been brought in from other organizational settings, specifically from so-called ‘software platform operators’. Data on routines for engaging with productive audiences have been collected from two information-rich cases in the music and the magazine industries, and from eight high-profile software platform operators. The paper concludes that the routines employed by the two traditional media organizations and by the software platform operators are based on the same set of principles: Provide the audience with (a) tools that allow them to easily generate cultural content; (b) building blocks which facilitate their creative activities; and (c) recognition and rewards based on both rationality and emotion.

Natural free convection in porous media: First field documentation in groundwater

Natural free convection is a process of great importance in disciplines from hydrology to meteorology, oceanography, planetary sciences, and economic geology, and for applications in carbon sequestration and nuclear waste disposal. It has been studied for over a century - but almost exclusively in theoretical and laboratory settings, Despite its importance, conclusive primary evidence of free convection in porous media does not currently exist in a natural field setting. Here, we present recent electrical resistivity measurements from a sabkha aquifer near Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where large density inversions exist. The geophysical images from this site provide, for the first time, compelling field evidence of fingering associated with natural free convection in groundwater.

Digital Spring? New media and new politics on the campus

Whilst the dynamics informing processes have taken time to become clear, civic resistance initiated by young people using new media began in Egypt in 2010 against the Mubarak regime, soon widened to Tunisia, Yemen and Libya. Known as the 'Arab Spring', this phenomenon re-ignited discussion about the political role of digital space and its democratic potential. While parallels between authoritarian regimes and universities and educational institutions might seem overdrawn to some readers, I suggest there is value in considering the 'Digital Spring' (apropos the 'Arab Spring') as a metaphor to suggest the possibility that similar processes are taking place in schools and universities. This invites discussion about the political significance of digital space and its democratic potential in those institutions. To assess how some young people engage in digitally mediated politics within schools and universities, I identify five propositions which amalgamate descriptive and normative elements derived from Habermas and Dahlgren. These propositions offer an ideal taxonomy of normative and descriptive elements to establish whether digital technology promotes participation and debate in ways that sustain democratic practice.

Literacy report 2008 [2008 futureSACE School to Work Innovation Program]

This project was designed to support high school teachers in participating schools to work with students whose literacy proficiency in key elements of the literacy component of the Year 9 LaN tests were in the low bands. -- p. 5.

Literacy and numeracy project: Final report 2009

Literacy and numeracy are critical for young people during and after their schooling. The subjects and courses that students undertake during their school years incorporate a range of academic literacy and numeracy practices which students must be able manage if they are to be successful. Pathways beyond schooling also require specific, and changing, understandings of, and proficiencies with, literacy and numeracy as new communication technologies increasingly impact on further study, work, and everyday life. Teaching and learning numeracy is a new emphasis in the SACE and as yet we have little understanding about the ways in which secondary schools handle this area. Students in Years 10 and 11 are at a crucial point in their educational and life pathways as they begin to refine their future aspirations. For those who have difficulty with academic literacies and numeracies – and often a long history of such problems – this period can be fraught unless teachers are able to provide specific support when it is needed, or students are able to access it from care-givers or community members. The School to Work Literacy and Numeracy Project involved teachers from nine schools across the three sectors and university researchers working together to design curriculum interventions for students with a history of low measurable achievement in literacy and/or numeracy. The project started from the premise that working with ‘rich tasks’, an approach to learning and assessment developed in the Productive Pedagogies work undertaken in Queensland (Hayes et al., 2006), would improve students’ motivation, engagement and learning and that this work could best be done by teachers working in school-based, cross-curriculum teams with a school leadership team member and a university researcher as mentor. A key idea in designing rich tasks is that students will have opportunities to demonstrate their learning in assessments which are aligned with the learning expectations (for example a film festival to publicly launch student-produced films, advertising to sell student-made cubby-houses, a household budget based on students’ likely incomes in future work). In other words the assessments should be designed to allow for authentic communication and displays of what the students have learned through serious engagement with the curriculum. The project was conducted from Term 1-4 2009, with follow-up checks with some project teachers in the early weeks of 2010.

Revisiting borehole stresses in anisotropic elastic media : comparison of analytical versus numerical solutions

We present a rigorous validation of the analyticalAmadei solution for the stress concentration around arbitrarily orientated borehole in general anisotropic elastic media. First, we revisit the theoretical framework of the Amadei solution and present analytical insights that show that the solution does indeed contain all special cases of symmetry, contrary to previous understanding, provided that the reduced strain coefficients β11 and β55 are not equal. It is shown from theoretical considerations and published experimental data that the β11 and β55 are not equal for realistic rocks. Second, we develop a 3D finite-element elastic model within a hybrid analyticalnumerical workflow that circumvents the need to rebuild and remesh the model for every borehole and material orientation. Third, we show that the borehole stresses computed from the numerical model and the analytical solution match almost perfectly for different borehole orientations (vertical, deviated and horizontal) and for several cases involving isotropic and transverse isotropic symmetries. It is concluded that the analytical Amadei solution is valid with no restrictions on the borehole orientation or elastic anisotropy symmetry.

How do Australian print media representations of child abuse and neglect inform the public and system reform?

The print media play a vital role in informing the public about child abuse and neglect. This information helps build broad support for laws and system developments that enable the state to intervene into private family lives and ensure that children are protected from maltreatment. Print media coverage usually sets the daily media agenda. It therefore influences public understandings of child abuse and neglect and what people believe should be done about it. Media impact on policy agendas should not be underestimated. This article outlines the results of a study of all major Australian newspaper stories covering abuse and neglect matters during an 18-month period in 2008–2009. A range of issues are identified concerning how well these stories inform the public about the nature of the problem and the current national reform agenda for protective systems that promotes early intervention and prevention...

Making stories matter: Using participatory new media storytelling and evaluation to serve marginalised and regional communities

In this chapter, we draw on our experiences facilitating community storytelling workshops in regional Queensland in partnership with the Queensland branch of Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA Qld) in order to develop a best practice model for promoting creative approaches to recording oral narratives using digital tools, informed by creative writing practice and embedded evaluation (Klaebe 2012 & 2013). These experiences offer an insight into how creative approaches to training can facilitate the sharing and preservation of stories in regional communities.

Arts education and iPads in the early years

This chapter takes as a working premise that digital culture is embedded in the every-day life experiences of most children living in post-industrial societies, both in home and, increasingly, in educational contexts. We outline how our research project investigated strategies for developing learning in the arts for young children by using the iPad as a creative device, rather than one on which they consume content in the form of games, on demand television and streaming video. We ask critical questions around creative ecologies and creative production; these grow from our observations on how young children and their families engaged with iPads through activities such as combining painting with digital photography. Analysis of work samples produced by children during the project enables interrogation of the ways in which young children can participate in arts practices and learning when digital media production is available. The chapter is structured around three themes of practice for iPad-based arts and creative education in preschool settings.

Drama, storymaking and iPads in the early years

In this chapter we consider how the iPad and selected applications such as Draw and Tell (Duck Duck Moose, 2013), Popplet (Notion Inc., 2013) and Puppet Pals (Polished Play LLC, 2013) can assist children in collaborative storying, retelling and sequencing story moments that can assist young children in their acquisition of oracy and their understanding of the world, both real and imagined, and their personal relationships. The data gathered from the project will also analysed through the lense of “critical and creative thinking” (ACARA, 2013, p.20-21) skills articulated as one of the general capabilities required in all subject areas of the Australian national curriculum, but which has particular application to The Arts subject areas. In this chapter, we consider artefacts created by preschool children using iPads and selected apps and interviews conducted with preschool children and their caregivers during our research project. We then offer examples of practice to assist preschool teachers in supporting children in their storymaking using the iPad and discuss approaches for engagement that twins the live and mediatised representation of a story.