Welcome to the first issue of IE this year. We hope you enjoy the content in this issue as it reflects much work that has been done in the background to gauge the wants and needs of readers. You may have taken part in our recent survey asking what you wanted to see in IE. The results were encouraging, with a large number of respondents sharing their thoughts with us.
It is our aim to make IE as responsive as possible to the changing needs of education professionals and to reflect challenges teachers, principals and support staff face every day.
We want IE to be a reference journal of academic standing that you can keep on your desk and discuss at meetings and in the lunchroom with your colleagues.
As always we welcome your suggestions for content.
In this edition we take a look at the ever changing face of ICT. It was not so long ago interactive whiteboards were a novelty, and yet we are moving past that, with interactive teaching spaces using all kinds of technology, as featured in the article on Makerspace (p16).
We also review all the latest in apps, extensions and programs (p33).
While the digital revolution marches on, it seems not all students are on the wagon. In fact, Australia’s students continue to fall behind in STEM and ICT. Teachers cannot assume that mobile savvy, games loving students have their head around things like Excel and Word. The research is telling us they do not (p14).
There is a disturbing trend highlighted in this issue regarding overwork and stress affecting school staff (p28) and in particular the worrying results of a survey showing an upward trend in principals experiencing violence at school (p10).
We offer some advice on dealing with stress, overload and mental illness at work on pages 22, 26 and 30.
John Quessy