News

Students in online tsunami session

Media Release, Friday 11 March 2005

Australians involved in the process of recovery after the Asian tsunami, including World Vision’s Tim Costello and the Australian Ambassadors to Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, will join Australian school students next week for an online “tsunami Q&A session” - an event organised by educators from the Centre for Applied Educational Research (CAER) at the University of Melbourne.

So far more than 16,000 students in 500 schools around Australia have accessed the online resource, Think.com, which is the delivery platform for the online session. Think.com is provided free to schools in 18 countries around the world by Oracle Corporation. Educators at CAER have been working with Oracle to roll out Think.com to schools across Australia.

The tsunami collaborative learning session, suitable for both primary secondary students in all curriculum areas will take place next Tuesday 15 March, from 2pm, as part of the National Quality Schooling Framework.

During the session, students will be able to participate in brainstorms, debates and votes, or access a comprehensive list of suitable websites containing information about the tsunami.

Also participating in the session will be fifth-year University of Melbourne medical student Claire Stewart who was working in Sri Lanka as a volunteer when the tsunami hit, and has first hand experience of the weeks immediately following the disaster.

Professor Peter Cuttance, who is Director of the Centre for Applied Educational Research, in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, says the online session is designed to be a springboard for schools to develop wide ranging projects on issues such as the economics of tourism, third world poverty, public health, and reconstruction of society.

Professor Cuttance says older students may wish to quiz online guests such as Tim Costello on foreign aid policy, while younger students can ask about how school students are managing in the affected area. “But there are no restrictions on debate – we’re simply hoping that this will be an engaging and practical learning experience for all students”.

More information:

Professor Peter Cuttance
Director, Centre for Applied Educational Research
Faculty of Education
University of Melbourne
Tel: 61 3 8344 1241
Email: cuttance@bigpond.net.au