QUT students and staff engaged strategically with staff and students from the two schools in Sabeto. This occurred over two days at each school. On the first day, the teams worked with classes 1, 3, 5 and 7. On the second day, the teams worked with classes 2, 4, 6 and 8.

Team Courtney Gemmell(Education), Zoe Wragg (Education), Edwina Sinclair(Fashion), Tahlia Hays(Fashion), Brendan Mitchell(Film & TV) and Jarrod Carter(Film & TV) divided themselves into two groups. The groups worked on an interesting idea where the younger children (classes 1 & 2) engaged in an activity (dance, role play). This was filmed by children in classes 7 and 8.

Jarrod getting his students ready

The first group led by Zoe engaged with with Classes 1 and 2 students. Class 1 students were given the task of presenting a dance item based on a different culture. In this item they had to demonstrate a series of movements associated with a song.  They also had to prepare and perform as a team. Their performance was videoed by students in Year 7. In this case they were meeting the following “achievement indicators” in music: (1) Perform items confidently on stage, and (2) Assist others in costume preparation and also at dressing up time. Achievement indicators determine  what students are expected to learn in a subject area.

Courtney and Zoe ready for class

Class 2 students had to act and role play in front of an audience. This activity enabled them to develop and demonstrate their dialogue, costume, and character skills. Their performance was videoed by students in Year 8. This activity addressed the following achievement indicators in English: (1) understand the different genres; (2) act out a role of a character confidently, and (3) have appropriate costume for a play.

The second group led by Courtney worked with students in classes 7 and 8. The first group of students developed their knowledge of how a video camera worked. They then used their knowledge to video a cultural performance of Class 1 students. Through this video they were expected to explain how the culture has changed over the years. This task was targeted at the following achievement indicators in Social Science: (1) Identify 5 aspects of culture that changed when compared to 50 years ago; (2) Video an aspect of  the culture as practiced today, and (3) Describe the change in words.

Class 8 students worked in a similar way to the Class 7’s. They too developed their video camera skills and then demonstrated their knowledge by filming the Year 2’s. The videos were edited using Openshot and then uploaded to the desktops. Here an attempt was made to achieve the following achievement indicators in English: Study the mechanics of staging a play.

A talented group of students – danced to some Bollywood hits

Through the collective efforts of these groups and their class teachers, some very interesting videos were created. Given that all children in classes 7 and 8 used digital cameras for the first time, this was a marvelous effort.

Courtney, Zoe, Edwina, Tahlia, Brendan, and Jarrod – great job. The videos clearly demonstrated your students creativity and higher order thinking skills. More importantly your were able to teach the basics of using video cameras in a very short time. In less than an hour – students were walking around the schools with video cameras – videoing of course with great confidence. In the lower grades – students were also highly engaged and having fun. Well done team!

Yes we were in Fiji – but it was hard work!