At Dandenong South Primary School, we are committed to equipping students with the digital skills of the future.
We use Digital Technologies to enhance teaching and learning as well as promote creativity in a safe and supported space. Our students are contributing digital citizens with access to a world of new learning.
Students in Foundation to Grade 6 have regular sessions with their teachers around the skills and competencies outlined in the Digital Technologies section of the Victorian Curriculum. Each classroom in Grades 3-6 has at least eleven computers for the children to use on a daily basis. In addition to this, we have sets of iPads in each year level to allow students to access as well as create digitally rich products during teaching and learning sessions. The students engage in a variety of activities and use a variety of hardware, which include projectors, scanners, printers, digital cameras, robotics and video cameras. The school is continually investing in its technologies infrastructure. All computers are networked and have high-speed connections to the Internet.
Digital Technologies are integrated across the school curriculum from Foundation to Year where skills are developed in context as opposed to being taught in isolation. Through this approach, students are provided with the skills and understanding to contribute in an increasingly digital world whilst given opportunities to be creative and innovative. Students use a variety of programs including Office suite of applications, Google Apps for Education, Lego Robotics, video editing and concept mapping software.
An eSmart school is a school where the smart, safe and responsible use of information and communications technology is a cultural norm. Students, teachers and the wider school community are equipped to embrace the best these technologies can offer, while being savvy about the pitfalls.
At Dandenong South Primary School, we are proud to have attained accreditation as an eSmart school through the ‘Alannah and Madeline Foundation’s eSmart program’ in 2016. We acknowledge that the Internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous platform for young people and, through our teaching and Digital Technologies programs, we aim to reduce our students’ exposure to online risks.
Our eSmart approach includes the following practices:
- Effective supervision of students using computers and other forms of technology
- Regular teaching and learning sessions to students around the safe and ethical use of digital technologies
- Creating whole school policies and procedures that ensure digital technologies are used safely at school
- Providing parent education about bullying, cyber safety and smart use of technology
Teacher modelling of cyber safe practices and ‘smart’ use of technologies