Mal Lee and Glenn Finger with a group of writers from across the world are currently working on a 2010 publication for ACER Press on Creating a Home-School Nexus – and The Development of Networked School Communities. It will present a vision of formal schooling that is networked and collaborative and removes the ‘walls’ of the traditional stand alone school. It is a vision many are already – often unwittingly – working upon.

The aim is to prepare a highly practical publication for those wanting to use the digital and network technology to create genuinely collaborative networked school communities, which do prepare the young for a digital future. It is about how increasingly resource rich homes which have long since normalized the use of the digital with the young can be best involved in mode of schooling appropriate to a digital world and not the Industrial Age.

It is both about a vision and how it might be realized.

Mal and Glenn are seeking to feature pathfinders – from anywhere, small or large – who have started creating that nexus.

The initiatives could relate to:

• the school’s use of the kid’s own digital technology in teaching
• virtual schooling
• parents’ possibly subversive use of the Web 2.00 technologies to ‘assist’ their school development and operation
• ‘out of hours’ online tutoring or library support
• school management systems that incorporate Web 2.00 type facilities that allow the students and parents to contribute to the school’s development
• school recognition of the student competencies acquired outside the classroom
• government efforts to recognize financially the parent’s outlay on ICT to educate their children
• using the electronic to provide more effective administration and communication with the home

In brief the authors would be delighted to hear of any moves made by the school or parents to use the networked world to improve the quality and appropriateness of schooling.

Simply email Mal Lee at mallee@mac.com with the details.