Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Teens find “creepy” apps follow them
Researchers from Deakin University and Monash University had a smartphone app developed to show young people the ways their personal information is harvested by social media. Participants found the results “surprising”, “unsettling” and “creepy”. Read more

Sydney Science Festival at venues all over town
Sydney Science Festival kicks off its 2018 program this week, with 13 days jam-packed with over 200 events across 90 venues in store. The Festival will be coming venues around Sydney from Tuesday 7–Sunday 19 August.
Super Science Saturday at the Australian Museum on 11 August, will feature two galleries of interactive science and engineering demonstrations, live animals, roaming scientists and more. Read more

Unqualified teachers sent to classrooms, costing millions
We need STEAM teachers and the High Achieving Teachers Program’ (HATP) is supposed to help with that, however the Australian Education Union has its concerns.
The AEU claims that the program would send unqualified candidates with no experience into Australian school classrooms to teach public school students, with the hope of earning their teaching credentials on the job. Read more

Global education leaders to meet in Melbourne
A gathering of education experts from around the world, The Asia Society Global Cities Education Network symposium will be coming to Victoria in 2019.
It’s a nod to Victoria’s progressive approach to education and its success when compared to other states.
Victoria’s mean reading score in the 2016 Program of International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is significantly higher than the Australian average. Read more

1 in 6 young people in Australia have been homeless
We’re a rich country but that doesn’t stop 1 in 6 of our young people experiencing homelessness, the figure includes those living in refuges, transitional accommodation and/or having spent time couch surfing.
Sadly, it starts young almost one in five of those who had couch surfed (19.5%) reported that they had first done so when they were less than 12 years old. Read more

$1 million for primary kids’ digital literacy research
An Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship awarded to Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) Professor Kathy Mills will drive a project exploring how harnessing all the senses can enhance the digital literacy of primary students.
A professor of literacies and digital culture at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE), Professor Mills will benefit from almost $1 million to support the four-year research project. Read more

Games and gambling not kids stuff
Gambling is insidious, it seems to pervade sport and a lot of social activity, it has also crept into the video games that so fascinate our kids.
Now the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA) has called on Australian parliamentarians to consider strengthening protections for young people by defining chance-based micro-transactions in digital games as a form of online gambling. Read more