Premier of South Australia

South Australian school students will soon be taking part in new online classroom activities as part of a $1.8 million Rann Government initiative to make the best use of new technologies in schools.

Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith says a series of local online activities are being developed through the three-year program, with the first now available for use.

Eighteen eTeachers have been appointed across the State to lead the program and maximise the use of technology in South Australian classrooms.

Dr Lomax-Smith says the new approach will give students and teachers programs ‘at their fingertips’, building on programs previously offered at the Technology School of the Future at Hindmarsh.

The centre’s activities will be refocussed next year to deliver teacher training to schools across the State using state-of-the-art videoconferencing facilities. The centre’s student programs will now be offered in schools.

Nine staff members will become part of a team delivering technology programs across the State, helping to take programs out of Adelaide to reach more students in country and remote schools.

“Nearly $26m has been invested to give schools broadband Internet access and other new technologies that open up a whole range of new ways for children to learn,” Dr Lomax-Smith says.

“We will be increasing the speed of Internet access even further next year and want schools to capitalise on that by introducing new online learning activities for students.

“This program will complement other online opportunities we have introduced in our schools, including virtual classrooms which connect students in schools hundreds of kilometres apart.

“It will give teachers more tools to take learning into the digital age, helping to make lessons more relevant and interesting for today’s technology-savvy students.

“Children are no longer restricted to textbooks. With the Internet, they can study real problems and use real data. Web camera and voice technology can bring together students in different schools.

“Online learning, through this new program, opens up many possibilities – virtual field trips, virtual galleries, heritage treasure hunts, travel buddies, online debates and forums.

“Activities could range, for example, from an online discussion with an author to a web-camera discussion with experts on wind farms supported with online units of work about alternative energies.

“It could involve a discussion between students in different schools who are studying the same text or provide an opportunity for junior school students to talk with kindy pupils about starting school.

“Classroom activities will be posted online as they are developed so teachers can browse and select appropriate activities to use in their lessons.