Educating for Uncertainty in a Changing World: Issues within an Australian remote indigenous context

Following the theme of 'educating for uncertainty in a changing world', this article delves into some of the issues that emerge for remote area indigenous Australians when change, cultural maintenance and an uncertain future collide. As a minority culture living alongside a Western colonizing culture, indigenous Australians confront a range of issues. This is particularly the case, as this paper argues, in the field of vocational education and training (VET). By discussing the establishment of the current VET system developed for a 'mainstream' context, and contrasting this to the remote area context, the article highlights the differences between the two and provides a basis for understanding the issues that arise. A discussion of the current social and political milieu furthers an understanding of these issues, which coalesce around the notions of control and access. It is apparent that these key notions remain pivotal if remote indigenous Australians are to educate for uncertainty in a changing world.     

Vocabulary learning

This article addresses the question of how to account for the growth in vocabulary knowledge that occurs during the elementary school years. Areas examined include the ways that word meanings are communicated, direct teaching of meanings vocabulary instruction as a part of reading instruction, and deriving and learning word meanings from verbal context. Taken singly, neither direct instruction of meanings nor learning word meanings from context seems to account all that well for the growth in vocabulary that is thought to occur.     

Computer Managed Learning: Significance to re‐registration and continuing professional education for nurses

The issue of skills maintenance and continued professional development are compounded in Australia by the distance factor. While choices do exist, some degree of relocation is often necessary for the rural worker.

Specifically, the paper will examine the relevance of Computer Managed Learning (CML) mechanisms to the renewal of registration (re‐registration) of nurses; and costs involved when the focal limitation is distance. The principle points are, however, applicable to other professions.