[English] The Learning Federation

Thu Jun 12 09:12:01 EST 2008

Dear all

I'm posting this (see below) on behalf of my colleague Stuart and the
TLF to further understandings of the work we do - its been an
interesting debate.  We are always interested in how people are using
and reacting to our work.  Regards, Jill

My name is Stuart Tait from Curriculum Corporation and I have been with
The Learning Federation from its inception in 2001. Stephen and other
contributors have raised questions about TLF and I am writing to respond
to some issues that have been raised.

TLF is a project jointly funded by the Australian Federal government,
each state and territory government and the New Zealand government. It
is managed by Curriculum Corporation. 

Contributors have expressed concern over the cost and value of the
project. By June 2009 there will be over 8500 items of content available
free of charge to approximately 13000 schools across Australia and New
Zealand. The content has been developed primarily for years 1 through to
10 across the curriculum. Australian and New Zealand Governments have
therefore contributed the equivalent of $2.50 per student per year for
ongoing access to TLF content throughout the compulsory years of a
students schooling. (This assumes an investment of $123mil for
approximately 13000 schools with an average enrolment of 360 students)
This compares favourably to the cost of textbooks or other educational
software.  

To support ongoing development TLF has been asked by governments to seek
licensing contracts overseas. TLF content, therefore, is not available
as open source on the internet. See
http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/licence on licensing TLF
content.

One of the issues facing Australian education is that the internet is
not free. The cost of download and copyright is the sleeper. The
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) is responsible for collecting from
education departments payment for the "copying" and use of third party
material. Many teachers would be familiar with annual survey on
photocopying within schools. Currently education departments pay over
$40 mil dollars per year to CAL for photocopying. CAL will also be
managing the Electronic Use Survey where teachers will be asked to
identify websites and digital content they have been using in class. CAL
will collect on behalf of third party providers, a fee negotiated with
departments. This is enshrined within the Copyright Act. Hence,
departments are concerned that with increasing use of digital content,
fees collected by CAL for content accessed by teachers and students on
the internet is likely to exceed the amounts currently collected for
photocopying. Cognizant of this impact on costs to departments (and the
possible flow on to schools) TLF has negotiated all licenses for third
party material and therefore all TLF content is exempt from ongoing
collection by CAL. 

>From the outset, TLF has been required by education departments to push
content out to jurisdictions who provide access for teachers within
their own systems. TLF content is therefore stored and managed in
repositories around the states and territories and New Zealand. This
helps to limit download costs to schools by serving content up through
WANs and, in the case of NSW, caching locally at schools. This
distributed system provides greater flexibility for departments and
schools to manage and distribute the content. Schools can further limit
download costs by loading content onto DVDs or school intranets. As a
consequence there are varied ways in which teachers and students can
access the content. See www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/access on how
to access TLF content.

TLF has worked with education departments to develop specifications to
ensure that there is consistent metadata for searching and browsing and
the way the software behaves for users. Given the content is used within
a range of environments and systems, the specification for metadata is
far broader than the international standard, Dublin Core. This work is
important because it allows departments and schools not to be beholden
to a particular vendor and allow schools to change content management
systems with relative ease. TLF specifications can be viewed at
www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/specifications . Included is a tool
that allows users to check their hardware and operating systems against
the TLF specifications.

Contributors should be aware that TLF content consists of interactive
learning objects developed or licensed by TLF and digitized resources
sourced from over 26 cultural organisations. These digitized resources
consist of moving image, sound files or text files and have been
supplemented with information that provides teachers relevant background
information to enrich their lessons. These are very open ended
resources.

An assessment of the quality of TLF content will often depend on the
values people bring with their judgement and suitability for particular
learning purposes remains a decision for teachers. TLF consults with
many teachers and students when developing content. There have been
reviews of the project and TLF has gained international recognition for
quality. See www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/research 

TLF is just one part of exemplary use of ICTs in education. There are
many teachers who are struggling with the array of tools and software
available on the internet and their pedagogical application to teaching
and learning. To these teachers, TLF has opened the door to the digital
world by providing content designed specifically for Australian and New
Zealand education. TLF is currently investigating ways to leverage Web
2.0 tools and is working with teachers to promote pedagogy which
effectively integrates TLF content with communication and social
community tools. Watch this space. 

Yours

Stuart Tait
General Manager
The Learning Federation
Curriculum Corporation
Phone: +61 3 9207 9630
Mobile: 0405 150 206 

-----Original Message-----
From: english-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:english-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of
stephen at melbpc.org.au
Sent: Saturday, 7 June 2008 12:58 AM
To: oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
Cc: yr7-10it at edulists.com.au; english at edulists.com.au;
itapps at edulists.com.au
Subject: [English] The Learning Federation

Hi all,

Trying to be as fair as possible, on an important issue.

What are people's thoughts regarding The Le at rning Federation?

  http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au

The group was set up in 2001, by all Ed Ministers for, "developing and
procuring online curriculum content specifically for Australian and New
Zealand curricula, and delivering it for free distribution to schools ..

The Initiative has delivered a valuable national asset that will
directly support the national curriculum and assessment agenda for
decades to come."

Hmm .. sounds good. But, their funding runs out next year, by which time
I believe they were meant to be self-funding. But on their website they
have a plan for considerably more *government* funding.

Ok, so, a fair question is, what has been achieved? Are they worth it?
The answer to this question is crucial, because with a national
curriculum, the Learning Federation products may well be mandatory for
we teachers (?)

According to my reading of their website they have received  $123
million over the previous seven years. And, in terms of achievements,
they write:

> By 31 December 2007 the project:
>
> * published over 6300 items of digital content ..

Hm, so .. that's $123 million .. divided by 6300 curriculum items.

That's close to $20,000 for each single (eg, Flash) TLF curriculum item.

> * developed a content repository to facilitate content development

Hm .. ok, a website .. 

> * maintained extensive consultation networks and collaborative
processes 

Hm .. how many colleagues reading this have been 'extensively'
consulted?

> * developed national standards and specifications ..

Hm .. there are already many standards eg, Dublin Core. We need another?

> * and systems to manage licensing and intellectual property for
content.

Hm .. so the companies etc paid to produce items sign a release
document.

Now, in March, the group put together a document "Sustaining supply of 
content for the digital education revolution. This paper details the 
sustainability of the Ministers' Le at rning Federation initiative beyond 
2009 to provide content for the digital education revolution." In here
they put forward a number of options to the government for more funding.
These range from $5 million a year, for not very much at all, to over
$16 
million a year for presumably much of the same. 

http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_jurisdictions/feasibility_an
d_p
lanning_reports/phase_three.html

Colleagues. Now would be a great time to let people know your opinions.

Our money, and profession, will be vitally involved  Is this good
enough?

Speak up now, or it will assuredly be more of the same. Is it good
enough?

Cheers people
Stephen Loosley
Member, Victorian
Institute of Teaching. 

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