[Year 12 IPM] Computer club

[Laurie Savage]

Terri,

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Our students tend to be very 
practically oriented kids. Many are from refugee or recent migrant 
families and are struggling in a new language and culture. Even those 
who speak English as a first language are often culturally disadvantaged 
- although probably differently than kids in the Kimberleys.

The up shot of this is that they don't engage well with contrived tasks 
or games, but enjoy working on projects that they can see relevance in - 
design stationery for your brother-in-law's lawn mowing business, create 
a web site for the hairdresser you work for on the week-end!

Last year we had a designer working as a CRT at our school between 
design contracts. He demanded the kids work to industrial standards and 
achieved great results. He had students in year 8 or 9 recreating the 
"Doll's" Site which uses Dreamweaver's behaviours to create draggable 
layers so the kids can mix and match clothing on models on a web site. 
They had created the clothing by learning how to trace and modify in 
Illustrator. He had year 7 students using Illustrator as a tracing and 
design tool. While many found it overly hard quite a few picked it up 
and ran with it. Our VELS standards are laughably low in comparison with 
what the students were achieving.

LS

Terri wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> I think Keith bit the bullet - passion is everything!  Here is a major brag.  I have taught at my school for 2 years and many kids could not do simple tasks 2 years ago...
> 
> I teach in Broome, in the Kimberley and have an amazingly successful computer club in a town where you would not really expect it and I have slightly more girls than boys.  It is open to years 4 to 7. Over 25% of kids have joined. I have older kids complain they can't join.
> 
> The kids do not play games but have special projects they chose with a purpose such as an animation about diabetes 2 (almost every 2nd adult in the area has it).  We meat one day after school.  A local bakery supplies afternoon tea and another local company called me thi week and has offered to print t-shirts.
> 
> We are a disadvantaged school in many ways; low literacy (many ESL), remote, lower socio-economic area, 50% Aboriginal etc.
> 
> The success which really powered the 'E-Club' was winning the VITTA 3in6.  They  can see no obstacles now and want to do bigger and better things. 
> 
> I promote ICT in every possible way at the school.  I have tips in the newsletter, get the kids in the paper and on local radio, display their work around the school, talk about the latest CG movie and make sure everyone know that I love ICT and it is something we (the kids) are good at.  
> 
> I do have times where I, or the group gets called a nerd or geek and I turn into a positive. I tell them I am a geek and am proud of it. I show them funny animations.   I share stories of cool things my 'geeky' friends get to do or places they get to visit.
> 
> They wanted to know if we could still have E-Club  on the public holiday or otherwise, when would we catch up that time...
> 
> Cheers, Terri.
> 
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-- 
Laurie Savage
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Student Assessment, Reporting and Tracking
Pascoe Vale Girls College, 03 9306 2544
Lake Ave, Pascoe Vale, Victoria, 3044
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