Birth,life and death of the Victorian Education Ultranet

This article examines the development and ultimate demise of the Ultranet, a major ICT infrastructure project in the education system of the Australian State of Victoria. The case is interesting as it was a very large project, intended for 1500 schools and funded to $180 m (Au). The study traces the design and implementation of the project as a socio-technical innovation in education. Although there are examples of how this project worked very well, its uptake was less than anticipated. The study found that potential benefits from a very large project like this can be nullified by a number of factors including: change in sponsorship of the project, an over emphasis on security concerns, failure to enrol crucial stakeholders and a naive assumption by technologists that technology with potential benefits will always be accepted. The study also found that technology projects must be delivered where a need exists and one that, most importantly, is recognised by the stakeholders. This will also be the case in other education systems around the world. If resources are not to be wasted the problem must be clearly identified and its need accepted before a solution is proposed. The Victorian Government finally abandoned the Ultranet in June 2013.     

从意、汉语音对比中学习意大利歌唱语言

意大利语和汉语分属两种不同的语系,在分属不同文化背景和审美习惯的意、汉语言的语音层,在辅音和元音的发声方式和发声状态上有不同的习惯。从意、汉语音对比中学习意大利歌唱语言,能使歌者更清晰、明了地分辨母语与意大利语之间的语音区别,通过区别掌握意大利语的特征,能为更好地演绎意大利歌曲打下扎实的语言基础。文章主要从意、汉元音的对比、意、汉辅音的对比及意大利语重音与汉语四声的对比这三方面来进行讲述。     

澳大利亚维多利亚州高考表现性评价的运用和启示

我国目前的新课程改革提出了新的课程目标、课程结构和教学方法,对学业评价尤其是高考制度提出了新的要求与挑战。如何在高考中体现新课程的评价理念,最大限度地发挥高考对学生、教育及社会发展的促进作用,还需要我们不断探索。澳大利亚维多利亚州成功地将表现性评价应用于高考的做法,可以为我们提供一些启示。一澳大利亚是联邦制国家,各州的教育制度并不完全一致。在维多利亚州,高中实行毕业教育证书制度(Victorian Certificate of Education,VCE)。在该制度下,共有43个学习领域或科目供学生选读和应考,如物理、化学、外语、英语、经济…     

Weight,gravity and air pressure: Mental representations by Italian middle school pupils

The research reports an investigation concerned with schemes of commonsense knowledge connecting the three elements weight, air and gravity to the phenomenon of free fall. Inferences about the mental representations of Italian middle school pupils (12‐13 years of age) have been gathered by interviewing a sample of 40 children, using a number of different questions and searching for the possible consistencies among the whole set of answers. Three schemes are suggested: in the first, the force of gravity operating on the weight of the objects causes their fall; in the second, the force of gravity and weight are two independent causes for the fall of objects; and in the third the force of gravity, weight and the phenomenon of fall are unrelated entities. Air is implicitly or explicitly invoked as a cause of either weight or gravity, or both.     

意大利语语音学习偏误分析与语音教学探析

语音学习是外语学习的基础,在语言学习中的地位十分重要。基于意大利语语音特点,归纳和分析学习者的常见偏误,对意大利语语音教学应注意的问题进行相关探讨、分析与建议。     

店铺、工作室和学校：文艺复兴时期的意大利艺术作坊

文艺复兴时期．意大利的众多艺术作坊具有多重功能和角色，既是艺术家组织艺术品生产和销售的商业店铺，也是艺术家从事艺术创作的工作室和培养未来艺术家的教育机构。随着新艺术观念的产生、传播和艺术家自我意识的觉醒，艺术作坊的功用也发生了变化，不仅艺术品的生产和创作日益与理论知识相结合，艺术教育也开始突破传统的学徒制模式．呈现出许多近代学院教育的特点．而这些变化又与当时艺术家阶层社会地位的变化和新形象的塑造关系密切。     

Educational outcomes,policy reform and cultural capital in Italian secondary schools

Italy’s poor performance in various indicators of educational achievement, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has featured strongly in analyses of Italian education policy, and its progress towards the Lisbon objectives has been slow. With weak outcomes often linked to a highly stratified system of upper secondary schooling, combining high levels of track differentiation with a comparatively young track selection age, Italy’s education system has been characterised as antiquated and rigid. Yet the evidence that poor educational outcomes are differentially distributed between different Italian regions suggests that the ‘tracked system’ itself, which does not vary among regions, may not fully explain the Italian indicators. This article examines recent policy responses to these weak educational outcomes and, drawing on a range of data which take account of the links between social selection, regional inequality and levels of family cultural capital, investigates whether the concept of cultural capital might provide a more nuanced and theoretically powerful explanation of differences in educational outcomes in Italy.     

Handwriting,spelling, and narrative competence in the fictional stories of Italian primary-school children

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Previous studies with English-speaking children showed that handwriting and spelling abilities played a critical role in the development of writing...     

Cultural Images of Children,Parents and Professionals: Italian Interpretations of Home-School Relationships

This article explicates selected findings from a recently completed collaborative investigation of home-school relations in five Italian cities: Reggio Emilia, Milano, Trento, Parma, and San Miniato. The purpose of the investigation was to understand the transactional relationships among national social policy, cultural values, and local practice relative to infant care and preprimary education. The article focuses on both the continuity and sub-cultural variations associated with two national guidelines-gestione sociale [participatory social management] and l'inserimento [the initial entry of young children into out-of-home care]. These cultural concepts served as the basis for an examination of home-school relationships as interpreted at the policy, programmatic, and interpersonal level. Common themes relative to gestione sociale and l'inserimento were identified across the five cities; local and regional differences were also apparent in the translation of policy into practices. The study revealed diverse sociopolitical and theoretical interpretations of effective home-school relationships, leading to structural variations in how each guideline is operationalized and valued. Collaborative analyses led to a deeper understanding of the Italian cultural value of relationships as central to definitions of program quality, the emotional well- being of adults as well as children, and the situatedness of early childhood education within community and national contexts.     

The difficult transition of the Italian university system: growth,underfunding and reforms

The evolution of Italian universities in terms of growth, economic sustainability and reforms can be interpreted in the light of the élite, mass and universal access categories defined by Martin Trow. The findings from this analysis show that although the number of enrolled students and funding problems propel the Italian university system towards the universal access stage, activities and functioning mechanisms are lagging far behind, since they are still involved in the transition from the élite to mass stage. Interpretation of the changes since 1980 on the basis of the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm and the notion of diversity allows identification of the reasons for this discrepancy as being mostly related to backwardness in terms of ideas and values rather than a lack of management techniques.     

Cultural Images of Children, Parents and Professionals: Italian Interpretations of Home-School Relationships

This article explicates selected findings from a recently completed collaborative investigation of home-school relations in five Italian cities: Reggio Emilia, Milano, Trento, Parma, and San Miniato. The purpose of the investigation was to understand the transactional relationships among national social policy, cultural values, and local practice relative to infant care and preprimary education. The article focuses on both the continuity and sub-cultural variations associated with two national guidelines-gestione sociale [participatory social management] and l'inserimento [the initial entry of young children into out-of-home care]. These cultural concepts served as the basis for an examination of home-school relationships as interpreted at the policy, programmatic, and interpersonal level. Common themes relative to gestione sociale and l'inserimento were identified across the five cities; local and regional differences were also apparent in the translation of policy into practices. The study revealed diverse sociopolitical and theoretical interpretations of effective home-school relationships, leading to structural variations in how each guideline is operationalized and valued. Collaborative analyses led to a deeper understanding of the Italian cultural value of relationships as central to definitions of program quality, the emotional well- being of adults as well as children, and the situatedness of early childhood education within community and national contexts.     

Participation,performance and inequality in Italian higher education in the 20th century

Using data from the five waves of the Italian Longitudinal Household Survey, this paper examines the dynamics of Italian higher education in the twentieth century. The main goals are to study changes in participation in higher education (enrolment, transition, and graduation rates), in performance (drop out and delayed graduation rates, average delay duration), and how these have changed in different social classes. The main results are as follows. Enrolment growth has not been followed by a proportional increase in graduation rates. The drop out rate, the number of delayed graduations and the average delay duration were already high before the 1969 reform, and subsequently increased over time. Delayed graduations increased among students from both upper-middle and lower-middle classes, whereas the drop out rate rose only among the latter, and stayed steady for the former. As a whole, absolute inequalities persisted over time, with any slight reduction that took place resulting from declining performance of the upper classes, and not from an improvement of the lower classes.

Horace Mann,the American common school and English provincial radicals in the nineteenth century

You must secure a law which as in the case of the New England States, as in the State of Massachusetts, for instance, compels every locality or parish to furnish not merely a building such as our orders in council are now aiming at‐furnishing bricks and mortar, of which we have more already than are useful‐more than are used‐but to furnish a master under proper control, and the means of giving instruction to the great body of people in all parts of the country.