Voices and Visions Online Tutorial

The National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) Strategy was a cooperative initiative of the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. The programmes it established continue to support enhanced and expanded provision for Asian languages and Asian studies through all school systems, with the aim of improving Australia’s capacity and preparedness to interact internationally, in particular with Asian countries. Through the NALSAS Strategy, the Commonwealth Government funded Curriculum Corporation to develop and publish the Voices & Visions series of CD-ROMs. Each CD-ROM is a package of authentic and topical primary source materials about a particular country, including contemporary and traditional material presenting non-stereotypical images. The audience for the CD-ROMs is secondary teachers and students in years 10–12. There are four titles in the series: • Voices & Visions from Indonesia • Voices & Visions from China • Voices & Visions from Japan • Voices & Visions from India The Voices & Visions CD-ROMs have been developed to: • encourage English teachers to move beyond ‘traditional’ texts and integrate non-English-based texts in their teaching; • enhance English teachers’ understanding of and skills in the use of CD-ROMbased multimedia and ICT; and • expand English teachers’ critical and cultural literacies so that the studies of Asia emphases are incorporated more effectively. To support teachers in the use of this resource, a professional development programme has been developed, consisting of the following. • An online introductory tutorial to support a broad audience in the use of Voices & Visions CD-ROMs: Indonesia, China, Japan and India. The online tutorial can be found on the NALSAS website at http://www.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/ • A one-day train-the-trainer programme to support the delivery of professional development in relation to Voices & Visions from Indonesia (developed in 2002). • Completed delivery of the train-the-trainer programme in all states and territories in 2002. • Adaptation of the one-day train-the-trainer programme to incorporate all of the four Voices & Visions CD-ROMs. These materials are available online as a PDF file on the NALSAS website. Funding for the project was provided by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) under the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) Strategy. The professional development project is managed by the Asia Education Foundation (AEF). This resource is the online tutorial.