ANSN offers teachers an opportunity to make study tours to schools using innovative thinking and new ideas. A scholarship of $1000 is available to help you to meet teachers making schools better for students and teachers.

Giving teachers opportunities to visit, watch and talk with others in diverse and similar locations is an amazingly powerful tool for professional learning because of the directness of the experience.

A series of Snapshots is being developed around the experience and practice of teachers in the Digi Kids program. The first in the series looks at Lynda Page’s work on Integrating Technology in the Early Years Classroom.  A teacher for more than 20 years, Lynda works at Coolum Beach State School, in Queensland. She has been a keen participant in the Digi Kids program, which is co-ordinated by Hanan Harrison. In developing the Snapshot, she worked with Keith Redman, Editor of E-News and this Snapshot series.

A suggested way to maximise the value of reading resources, for example the KidSmart Snapshots, could be to use them with the Final Word Protocol, within a staff or team meeting.

The Australian National Schools Network- a statement about our objects, purposes and the work we do.

The ANSN is a not-for-profit national network of teachers, researchers, schools, systems, sectors, unions, universities, and community and business partners. It focuses on rethinking schools for a changing world.

ANSN Snapshot Number 1 for 2008 is by Matthew Brown, from Tasmania. He reflects on what he drew from a Big Picture Workshop early in 2007, and how he related this to his thinking and practice, in a primary classroom and in a broader educational context.

This snapshot case studies Alex, a young child with Autism, and how using technology integration provided a tool for Alex to develop social and educational outcomes.

Moorditj - a Noongar word for "strong or excellent"

Having launched the series with the Gracemere story, the second Snapshot we are introducing is from Moorditj Noongar Community College, WA, a school with approximately 140 indigenous students enrolled from K-7.

Jane WilsonWritten by Jane Wilson, Assistant Principal and Head of the Middle School at Paralowie R-12 School, it describes Supersize Me with Science, a project that addressed the following research question: “How does authentic assessment, when used with student-centred learning about dietary habits and global food issues, help empower students to become more discerning about their diet and more active participants in society?”

Gracemere State School is located 10 km west of Rockhampton in the central Queensland town of Gracemere. the school has fewer than 300 primary children from prep to grade 7, with a high proportion of lower income, single parent and indigenous students.

Anne-Maree and Leanne Paxton from Gracemere State School have written this KidSmart Snapshot based around investigating the following key question their school.

"How can we use ICT as an integrating tool to increase motivation and participation of boys in multiliteracies?"