If you're having difficulty finding the time to get your students to complete the questionnaire, why not set it for homework? You can distribute the Student Activity Numbers (SANs) for each student to take home and complete in their own time. This avoids having to book a computer lab or re-organising the program to ensure that all students have access to a computer. Several schools did this in 2006 as one way to manage their student's participation, even allowing for their entire school population to get involved. This is also a great way to ensure your students have access to local area data come data usage phase.

Alternatively you could ask students to take their measurements for homework so that they have their answers ready when doing the live questionnaire. This can also save some time, as students will be prepared when entering their data in the "My measurements" portion of the questionnaire. Review a sample version of the questionnaire to learn more about the measurement questions.

The 2008 questionnaire will bring a wide range of investigative opportunities. The addition of internationally comparable questions and the new slider response questions, bring with them new ways of managing and analysing the data. In line with this, the 2008 Random Sampler has been tailored to provide users with the option of choosing which datasets they want to view, and the database from which they want to extract the data (2006 and/or 2008).
For longitudinal analysis, teachers can view the comparable questions between the 2006 and 2008 databases (see a step-by-step guide below). The sample will open in an Excel file with two worksheets, one containing 2006 data and one with 2008 data.
The international common questions can also be easily extracted from the Random Sampler by selecting the option "International questions only" from the criteria options. These are directly comparable with other participating countries including United Kingdom, Canada & New Zealand. For more detailed information about conducting comparisons across countries, please see How The International Data Can Be used from the About CensusAtSchool web pages.

The slider response questions will be returned in two different formats to allow for both numerical and categorical analysis to be undertaken. The numerical output (for such questions as Q38 & Q39) will return a value between 1-1000, whilst the categorical format would return responses ranging from 'Not very important' / 'Somewhat important' / 'Important' / 'Very important'. Watch this space for more 2008 data usability information in the August issue of the CensusAtSchool newsletter. Alternatively browse through Using CensusAtSchool Data to find out more about accessing the data.

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CensusAtSchool integrating technology in the classroom CensusAtSchool is a real project for students, that promotes the use of ICT in the classroom. It's not just an internet-based project: it can be incorporated with a wide range of technological tools during the investigative process. Students use Excel to turn data into meaningful information, using a range of simple statistical functions such as mean, median, Countif etc. They can then go one step further and depict the information on a bar graph, a pie chart, a scatter plot and determine which is the best tool for a particular dataset, and why. They can experiment with the scale of the graphs and see how the story changes. This sparks debate about what implications this may have on decision making and how data can be misused in the media for the wrong reasons. The learning opportunities are infinite! However, the possibilities of ICT applications extend beyond Excel. CensusAtSchool data can be easily loaded into a variety of technologies ranging from GIS and Tinkerplots, to graphic calculators. A Geography class could use GIS to observe spatial representation of a sample using CensusAtSchool data, whilst a Maths class may use Tinkerplots to explore whether girls have faster reaction times than boys? Data will be easy to use and apply When teachers and students head to the Random Sampler this year, they will no longer find a CSV file returned to them. The 2008 Random Sampler data ports directly into an Excel file, unlike 2006 data which required conversion from CSV format. This means teachers & students can simply save the Random Sample file in an Excel worksheet and delve into the data instantly.

StatSmart Workshop
The ABS office in Victoria recently hosted teachers from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania for the second workshop of the StatSmart project. StatSmart is a three year study with 45 teachers from these three states to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the use of CensusAtSchool data in the classroom and assess whether statistical literacy of both teachers and students has improved. The study, partly funded by the Australian Research Council, is undertaken in collaboration with four other external organisations, the University of Tasmania, University of New England, The Noel Baker Centre For School Mathematics and Key Curriculum Press.

CensusAtSchool International Workshop
The second CensusAtSchool International Workshop is now only a month away! Delegates from South Africa, Canada, United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia and the United States will be sharing their experiences about promoting statistical literacy among students, within their respective countries. The workshop is being held at UCLA, Los Angeles on 28-29 July.

Conferences
Education Services has been out and about attending the recent Maths Association of South Australia (MASA) and Maths Association of Tasmania (MAT) conferences. Pat Beeson spoke to the mathematicians at the MASA conference about spatial data and the use of CensusAtSchool data in the classroom. The key message was to encourage teachers to do CensusAtSchool with their students and help build the dataset.

The MAT conference was held at the University of Tasmania in Launceston on the 16-17th May. Mathematics Teacher Consultant, Ian Wong, hosted a workshop about the different applications of CensusAtSchool data in the classroom, and outlined a new activity available from the AAMT website. The resource was created for the National Mathematics Day 2008, observing students' usage of broadband internet over time.

Pat Beeson was also in South Australia recently to attend the Geography Teachers' Association of South Australia conference where she spoke about the range of Education Services resources available to teachers, including CensusAtSchool. While in SA, Pat also conducted 6 teacher workshops on CensusAtSchool. Keep an eye out for future workshops near you!

Japan to join CensusAtSchool participating countries
Delegates from Japan recently visited the Australian Bureau of Statistics to talk about the possibility of Japan's future involvement in CensusAtSchool. An Assistant Professor at Naruto University of Education, Kazuhiro Aoyama says "Japan Statistical Society has strong interest in CensusAtSchool to support students' learning of statistics". A project team has since been formed at the Japan Statistical Society, and further discussions will continue at the CensusAtSchool LA international Conference. This would certainly be an exciting addition to the international CensusAtSchool database!