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Local schools getting even more technical with Digital Literacy Grant

All smiles as students are ready for new digital literacy

Minister Simon Birmingham has announced that 54 Digital Literacy School Grants have been awarded to schools across Australia.  Four local Catholic schools, St Mary’s Warwick, St Patrick’s Allora, St Francis de Sales Clifton and St Maria Goretti Inglewood have been successful in receiving one of the $55,000 grants.

“We put forward our grant application in October last year, hoping that we would get the funding to provide the teachers at each of our schools with opportunities to improve student learning outcomes in the Digital Technologies curriculum area.  Because of our successful bid, teachers will be able to access professional learning based on the new curriculum and how to integrate this in their day to day teaching,” said Mrs Margaret Grew, Principal of St Mary’s Warwick.

Mrs Grew took the lead in applying for this grant with her colleague Principals.

“The grant funds will focus on building teacher knowledge and capacity in the new Australian Curriculum learning area Digital Technologies. This curriculum asks students to not only be users of technology but also creators.

“Over the next three terms teachers will work together to create learning experiences for their classes related to the Digital Technologies and other key learning areas, such as Mathematics and Science.

“Teachers will then share these learning experiences with each other during professional learning team meetings to share experiences and provide feedback to each other about how those experiences worked in their classrooms.”

The new Digital Technologies Curriculum includes student’s development of computational thinking skills, algorithmic thinking and creating digital solutions for problems.

The grant will also help the schools purchase robotic and coding resources to aid in implementing this new curriculum.