After two successful days of teacher professional development in Lautoka, we headed out to the schools. Our first stop was at the Drasa Avenue Primary School. Here we donated the 10 laptops that we used for teacher professional development. Afterwards we engaged with students from Satya Narayan’s class (Year 7). We divided the class up into three groups. The first did an activity using Scratch, the second group did a robotics activity and the third group did an activity using Photo Story 3. Enthusiasm was very high amongst the students. More importantly they were able to demonstrate their capabilities of using these technologies very efficiently.

Sabeto Central School

We then visited the Sabeto District and Sabeto Central Schools. This was an important first step for our project in 2013. Through QUT’s Engagement and Innovation Grant, eight of our under graduate students in education, engineering, film and TV, and fashion would work in teams and teach in these schools for a week next July. The idea would be for our students to showcase how ICT can be integrated in classrooms to deliver learning outcomes as identified in their curriculum. This project is a collective effort of four of us at QUT – Graeme Baguley (Manager, Head of International Student Services), Geoff Portmann (Associate Professor and Head of Discipline, Creative Industries Faculty), Martin Betts (Professor and Executive Dean, Faculty of Science and Engineering) and myself.

We were warmly welcomed at both schools. The Head Teacher (Setareki Rika), teachers and the School Manager (Illiesa) welcomed us to the school with kava. This meeting was also attended by Albert Wise (MOE) and Donu Rokotakala (QUT Alumni). Both welcomed our participation at their schools in 2013.

Kava ceremony at the school