CQUniversity Associate Professor Mike Horsley was recently invited to give a keynote presentation to the Korean Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE)...

Dr Horsley was invited as Director of CQUniversity's Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC), and as Vice-President of the International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM).

Dr Horsley with KICE staff members Dr Yoojin Kwan, Dr Jeong Hyo Kim and Dr Yoon Hyun-Jin from the Division of Textbook Authorisation, with the title page of the book on research on textbook policies internationally.

KICE is the Korean government-funded educational research institute tasked with focusing on the development of curricula for elementary and secondary schools. KICE also carries out the authorisation of textbooks for elementary and secondary schools and manages the national Korean student testing and evaluation program.

In 2009 PISA, the international student evaluation conducted by the OECD, introduced an electronic reading assessment.

Dr Horsley says that Korea ranked first internationally in this electronic reading assessment.

"PISA proposes to introduce a Computer Based Assessment of Literacies (CBAL) that includes problem solving and mathematical literacy in 2012.

"As part of their preparation for this new round of PISA assessment Korea is revising its school textbook policy and school digital resource policy."

Dr Horsley was invited to present research he conducted as part of an Australian Research Council linkage grant on the use of textbooks and digital learning materials in Australia.

"In particular I presented research on the potential impact of the new digital education repository that has been designed to support teachers implementing the new Australian national curriculum," he said.

Over 100 researchers, teachers and KICE research staff attended Dr Horsley's presentation, which has been translated into Korean and published in a book chapter on international textbook research.