In this Blog, Education Unlimited: Connecting Research with Practice, we encourage staff and students from the School of Education and the Centre for Educational Research at Western Sydney University to write about their research, perspectives on broad educational issues, and commentary about current educational discourses. We also encourage readers to comment on what they read by responding, reconfiguring, rejecting or suggesting alternatives to the views expressed here.
Through these discussions we can ponder the challenges confronting learners and teachers today and suggest possible solutions; question current practice and policy; link research and practice and, perhaps even more importantly, celebrate innovation and achievement in education.
The changes that are occurring to the ways in which we approach learning and teaching are fundamental. They are not just the result of technology, although that is a critical and increasingly pertinent factor in discussions about education. They also arise from government policy, from research, from the pressures of an educational system that is increasingly global, and from the opportunities and restraints placed on us by economic considerations. The issues we face in greater Western Sydney resonate throughout the whole of Australia and globally. So… please join us in our ongoing discussion about a vision for Education and its nature and role in contemporary times.
We look froward to engaging with you as we continue to talk about what matters in Education!
Education Unlimited 
Good morning UWS bloggers
What a great idea to have a blog on the School of Education homepage – the wordpress platform is a very good one – quick and easy to use. Well done! I am new to academic teacher education staff at UWS, I have had a terrfic time settling in, attending orientation lectures and meeting new colleagues and students. Web 2.0 technologies are important in learning.I am not certain if many of you are aware but from early March all teachers and students in NSW public schools will be able to access the new Department of Education ‘blogging tool’ called blogED. Quite an undertaking to roll out something like this for 70,000+ teachers and >1.2 million + students. It’s been extensively trialled with groups of teachers and students. Teachers can elect to make their blogs “public” or “private”. Last year when doing some behind the scenes work in the Connected Classrooms Program I wrote up some case studies about how teachers are embedding blogs into units of work in their subject area or KLA – over the coming weeks I’d like to share some of those ‘short stories’ and ideas with you – you might like to use them in your own teaching and learning, or when you are out on prac experience in schools – anyway put on your ‘blogging shoes’ and have a go …
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Thanks, Jane – it’s good to have you on board at UWS, particularly with your experience in working at the NSW DET in the technology area. How about we get you to post the next 21st Century Learning blog entry? What really interests me at this point is the way young people use technology in their social (outside of school) worlds, to both network and learn, and how different this is to the way they are asked to learn in classrooms. My feeling is that in 25 years, school education will not look like it does now, simply because of the way young people access and create new knowledge – they really don’t need teachers anymore (or so some would argue). The challenge for we in Education is, I think, to find different roles and forms of teaching for teachers in this new information environment. I am sure many teachers and young people already have ideas on what these new forms of learning and teaching might be!
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Hi there,
My name is Patrick and I’m an avid subscriber of your blog and I’m an advocate for Education as well. I remember an article you have about “Education to Change The World: Learning for Realising One’s Personal, Social and Ecological Potential” and thought that this article might interest you. You can find the article here: http://newsroom.opencolleges.edu.au/features/the-value-of-mistakes-should-it-matter-how-long-a-student-take-to-learn/.
Please let me know what you think. I’d be really excited to hear from you!
Thanks.
Patrick del Rosario
Education Ambassador, Open Colleges
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