Day 14: School of the Air.

We packed a great deal into our morning tour around to Alice Springs, arriving first of all at the School of the Air, where there are presently 138 students enrolled from Pre-School to Grade 9. They might live 100s of kilometres from the school as well as from each other. We watched a teacher working with grade 3 children online. Remembering my struggles to negotiate a whiteboard, I think I might have found all the technology somewhat daunting, although I liked the idea of being able to reduce the volume of the students' voices.
About 4 times a year students come to Alice Springs with their parents. This is a govenment funded activity, which gives the students chance to interact with their peers. Today 5th grade students were altogether in one of the classrooms.


A mural at the entrance.


And another inside.

These sewn collage pictures formed part of a huge "quilt" celebrating 50 years of the school of the air which started with 2 way radios in 1953.













Only in 2005 did the school become fully computerized and even now a large proportion of the learning is workbook based.

Here is one of the radios teachers would have used before everyone acquired computers.



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