Chris Bourke has announced the appointment of Diane Joseph to be the Director-General of the Education and Training Directorate.
Ms Joseph has been acting in the position since April 2012. She commenced with the Directorate in January 2010 as Deputy Director-General.
Ms Joseph has been responsible for overseeing key strategic planning and for coordinating activities across the [...]

The Shanghai Ranking Academic Ranking of World Universities is out and it’s not pretty reading for Australia.
The US and UK dominate with Japan, Switzerland, Canada and France getting smattering of entries in the top 40.
Melbourne University get in at 57, and then our ANU makes 64.
Barely scraping into the top 100 are the Universities of [...]

[ 15 August, 2012; 12:30 pm; ]

This in from the CSIRO:

Join Prof Colin Pask for a lunchtime talk.

Colin Pask will take you into a place that can be frightening and bring you back a little wiser.

He introduces the main ideas of mathematics, and using examples, painlessly demonstrates how they are
expressed in symbols while helping you to overcome the fear of maths.

You [...]

Checking last nights win news, noticed that the John Curtin School of Medical Research at anu was opened by Andrew Leigh, yet the engraved stone says Plibersek.
oops.

Raising my eyebrows this morning is Meredith Hunter coming to the Dozspotian view on sending government education dollars chasing disabled students where ever they may be found:
The ACT Government announced one off, ad hoc funding of $2m to the non-government sector to support students with disabilities in the 2012/13 budget.
The ACT Greens today committed [...]

The Greens have announced if they have their way they’ll spend more money on the Human Rights Commission:
The ACT Greens have announced that they will boost funding for the Human Rights Commission (HRC) by $633,000 over the next four years in order to assist with the increased demands of recent times and to prepare [...]

This is the question I’m asking my self over the next few weeks, to give you some backstory I recently started teaching and I’m in the technology department I also recently graduated so the currency of my ICT skills are mint and I must say I love the Heck out of my job, I teach years 7-10.
I have [...]

I cant take this any more, the stress Ive been put under is just too much.
To any interested heres some interesting news for you. Parents be very afraid for your kids schooling next year if they are in year two or below.
Theres a desision thats come from the ACT Education Dept admin and next year [...]

ANU’s Vice-Chancellor Ian Young has blogged an explanation of new “vertical” degrees:
The new degree will mean students can get a bachelor and masters degree in reduced time, complete several masters subjects in a bachelor degree, and graduate from two degrees that will set them up for life.
Forty per cent of ANU students already take [...]

[ 25 August, 2012; 12:00 am to 4:00 pm. ]

This just in:

The John Curtin School of Medical Research will open its doors to the public from 12noon – 4pm on Saturday 25 August as part of ANU Open Day.

The School continues a 60 year tradition of excellence in fields of medical research.

Join us on Open Day to see displays & demonstrations set up in [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher is highlighting her work with pregnant teenagers and promising to do more:
If re-elected in 2012, ACT Labor will invest an extra $14.5 million to make sure Canberra’s pregnant or parenting students have the same educational opportunities as other young people.
ACT Labor will fund a new purpose built CC Cares facility at Canberra [...]

[ 6 August, 2012 to 12 August, 2012. ] Engineering Week 2012 has something for everyone including a free public forum and exhibition on how to make your home more sustainable. 6 – 12 August Further information www.makeitso.org.au/australian-engineering-week/Canberra

[ 6 August, 2012; 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. ] At 3:31pm Monday, the NASA/CSIRO Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre (aka Tidbinbilla Tracking Station) will play a pivotal role in the most important space mission going right now. The Mars Science Laboratory (nicknamed Curiosity) will land on Mars after a 7-minute crazy ride to slow it from a relative velocity of 12,844 km/hr. And all transmissions from [...]

The ANU has announced their Professor Howard Morphy has won the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Huxley Medal:
The international award is the highest honour bestowed by the prestigious British institute. The award was established in 1900 in memory of Thomas Henry Huxley – the celebrated English biologist and advocate of Darwinian evolution theory – and is [...]

The ABC has word that Canberra’s Nobel Laureate has put his nobel prize on display at Questacon:
Professor Schmidt and his team won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize for their groundbreaking discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up over time, not slowing down as widely assumed.
They also found that the universe is [...]

[ 27 August, 2012 to 28 August, 2012. ] Here’s the stonking line-up:

Timothy Morton, This Is Not My Beautiful Biosphere
Nick Mansfield, Deconstructing the Sovereignty of the Earth: Bataille, Derrida and the Natural Politics of Climate Change
Elaine Kelly, Dwelling in the Future
Linda Williams, The ‘Little Ice Age’ and the 18th Century European concept of the Sublime
Angi Buettner, From Climate Change to Cultural Change: How to [...]

Time for another one of the Canberra Astronomical Society’s public telescope viewing nights, in partnership with the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Next to Scope Cafe on top of Mount Stromlo, from 7 to 9pm. No charge.
Yes I know the weather forecast is looking touch and go, but you’d be really surprised what our telescopes can [...]

Seems like someone’s getting a little defensive. After the kerfuffle earlier today over the state of public schools, Chris Bourke wants to remind us of all the wonderful things going on in ACT schools right now.
Local primary and high schools are being upgraded, Malkara School is getting a swimming pool, Canberra College is getting a [...]

Hey, I’m a husband of an Early Childhood teacher who currently works in the ACT Public School system.
My wife has been told by the principal at the school where she teaches, that next year there will be a “clean sweep”.
Long term Early Childhood teachers (30 years) are being told they will be moved to teach [...]

The University of Canberra has thirteen students, a staff member and three graduates participating in the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. They will be participating in swimming, track and field, volleyball and cycling events.
The university also has a researcher attending the games in order to run a study on volunteers.

The ACT Opposition Leader and Shadow Education Minister, Zed Seselja and Steve Doszpot, have made their own election promise: a Canberra Liberals Government would hold a $250,000 public school infrastructure audit.
Doszpot accused ACT Labor of neglecting government schools to the extent of leaving Taylor Primary “so poorly maintained that it couldn’t be used.” (The school [...]

Joy Burch, Minister for Community Services, has today launched ‘Take Hold’, a new program that addresses youth homelessness in the ACT. Take Hold is funded by the ACT Government and will be working with the Ted Noffs Foundation to mentor young homeless people.
Take Hold coordinates an annual social enterprise seed funding program to assist young [...]

ANU Vice Chancellor Young has announced that Dr Peter Tregear is going to take over as head of the troubled School of Music.
Dr Tregear has extensive international experience as a researcher, teacher, and academic administrator in music education, both in the UK and Australia. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, and King’s [...]

Territory and Municipal Services have a novel suggestion for keeping small hands occupied this holidays:
Local children have a chance to learn how Ngunnawal people made traditional tools such as rope and stone axes at a special activity at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary next Monday, 16 July 2012.
“This is a great opportunity for ACT and regional [...]

Hi rioters. We are moving to Canberra shortly for work. I will be working in Bruce and my hubby will be in the Parliamentary Triangle.
We are planning to live near my work – somewhere like Bruce, Kaleen or Aranda. My main concern is to find a school for my eldest (starts Kindergarten next year) and [...]

When I saw ANU running the headline “Researcher on cloud nine over universe discovery” I was pretty excited.
Had the quantum researchers discovered a universe? Or the astronomers?
Either way it would have trumped the Higgs Boson malarky coming out of Switzerland quite handily.
Sadly it turns out they’ve been looking at dwarf galaxies which, like a [...]

The ANU is proudly reporting that the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s Xi Yang has been awarded a Google PhD Fellowship:
Research student Xi Yang has received a Google PhD Fellowship, one of only three awarded in Australia and 40 worldwide.
Mr Yang, of the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), is working in [...]

The Brumbies are celebrating local up and coming talent:
Neori Nadruku [Eddies] and Andrew Robinson [MacKillop] were selected in the top side while fullback Montana O’Neill [Marist] will play for Australia A.
…
Robinson represented both Australia A and Australia at schoolboys level in 2011, while for Nadruku, the son of former rugby league international Noa, [...]

Weather permitting, there are some good space viewing opportunities for Canberra people over the next week or so. Planets, stars, the International Space Station, and even a manned Soyuz launch to hunt out.
First, the beautiful morning conjunctions with Jupiter and the very bright Venus continue and even get better. For two weeks now these two [...]

The Library Service’s latest unconvincing effort to shake their reputation as a bastion for nerds (speaking as a proud nerd who spent much of his youth hiding in various Libraries) is the COOL Awards.
“The COOL Awards are the Children’s Choice Book Awards voted for by the young people of the Canberra region. ‘COOL’ stands for [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher is happily announcing that a great many Canberrans have traded tinned food for their library fines.
ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Katy Gallagher, today announced that over 2,900 kilograms of food was donated to charity as part of the Food for Fines initiative run by Libraries ACT last [...]

[ 7 July, 2012 to 22 July, 2012. ]

IT’S WINTER, IT’S WIRELESS, IT’S WORDS
Journey back to the days when radio ruled the airwaves.   Perform our radio play, complete with mystery, felons and good guys.
SESSIONS: Monday 9 July, Tuesday 10 July and Wednesday 11 July
TIME: 10.00am to 12.30pm
AGES: 9yrs to 13yrs
COST: $10.00 per session
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL: 6248 2000

ONCE UPON A TIME
Join Ms Amanda in the [...]