Government to invest $20m in 'NBN-ready' education portal

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 15 December 2011 15:32

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The Federal Government has announced a $20m project to create an online educational portal that will provide school students and teachers around Australia with access to vast archive of ABC material, linked to the Australian Curriculum and that will need NBN bandwidths to utilised.

The project will be developed under funding arrangement with the ABC and Education Services Australia - a national, not-for-profit company owned by all Australian education ministers that was created in 2010 by merging Curriculum Corporation and Education.au.

It was announced jointly by the minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy, senator Stephen Conroy and minister for school education, Peter Garrett. They said it was "an exciting learning tool for use at school, and importantly, at home...[that] will enhance skills development and allow students to work collaboratively with students across Australia," and that resources could include "a free online tutorial service and the ability to take part in self-directed interactive learning activities using games, video, reading material, and quizzes."

"Students across the country will be able to access the ABC's huge archive - television footage, audio items and online content - which will be directly linked with the new curriculum content," Garrett said.

"Students will be able to watch, listen, read, remix, tag and recommend resources. They will be able to have virtual tours of educationally relevant places, events or communities and participate in interactive games, in 3D immersive environments."

It will be launched in the second half of 2012 and is being designed to exploit the bandwidth of the NBN. A spokesman for senator Conroy told iTWire that it would be accessible by Internet user, but ADSL customers would need to be close to an exchange in order to get sufficient bandwidth to make full use of it.