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USC is a World-Class Site for Education
16 October 2004
On Wednesday, Minister Bligh officially opened Education
Queensland's $2.7 million information communication technology
centre on the third floor of the new $16 million 'tower' at the
University. It was a highly significant occasion for a number of
reasons.
Firstly, as the Minister said, this is a unique form of
cooperation between a university and a public school system. It has
been three or four years since proposing the concept, then refining
it, and now seeing the initial realisation, which is already
providing impressive opportunities for students, in-service
teachers, and next year, intending teachers in training. It is a
facility without peer in Australia and will see the ICT Centre and
USC become one of the main teacher education sites in the country
and provide unrivalled possibilities for exploring ways of
introducing ICT into classrooms.
The links between Chancellor State School and Chancellor State
College are very close, and this Centre further strengthens the
cooperation and interactions to ensure there are no artificial
barriers between school and university that can intimidate
students.
It is already becoming evident that many school students who
visit the University on a regular basis are automatically committed
to 'their' university and are seeing attendance here in the future
as degree students as a normal progression. That has to be good for
the children and the Coast. So this Education Queensland-USC
cooperation, given enormous impetus by Yvana Jones as District
Director and John Lockhart as Principal, and supported strongly by
Laurie Campbell, as well as the Minister herself and Ken Smith as
Director-General, is a national exemplar of inter-sectoral
cooperation that makes education more appealing and more
powerful.
The second area of significance relates to Education degree
programs that will commence here next year. It is evident in the
kind of strategies that teachers are already developing in the ICT
Centre that student teachers could have few better campuses to work
on, anywhere in the world. The outcomes for children were evident
at the Opening when a Grade 4 student, Jessica Brooks, stole the
show and gave an address on how IT was impacting on her life and
future that stunned me. She was lucid, composed and informed and
addressed a large adult audience in a way that I could never have
done even when at University.
This kind of learning and development of self-confidence can
clearly occur in new classrooms, exploring new ideas, with the
latest facilities, and where university lecturers and school staff
are cooperating.
There were examples of State-wide connections with teachers
where video interaction and teaching were occurring that was really
impressive.
With new and exciting education programs at the University from
next year and proximity to this ICT Centre, along with cooperative
surrounding schools, and strong links with overseas universities
and education districts for both teachers and students, USC is
going to be the place to study Education - these are world-class
facilities, already providing world-class examples of technology in
classrooms.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast