Screen Time

A huge consideration for all of us when it comes to using technology is screen time. There is lots of conflicting information out there that provides differing recommendations.

During our explorations into this area, particularly off the back of two years of remote learning, we found this useful resource for parents from the eSafety Commissioner.

Hopefully, the hints and tips provided will be of benefit to you.

If you want to gain access to more of their parent and family resources head here.

We hope you find what we share informative and helpful. Please feel free to send over any other helpful resources or articles you find connected to digital safety to me at twood@stlouisaspendale.com

A quick snapshot of our work in STEM this week

Year 5

Year 5 students have continued delving into the world of Micro:bit coding, with the hope of solving a health problem around the school. It's been great to watch them develop an understanding of how to use loops and variables in their codes as well as work in collaborative groups to design prototypes for their solutions to the problems they encountered.

Check out some of the photos below.

Minecraft Education

We've also been using Minecraft Education to learn more about strategies to do with staying safe online. We talked about scamming and phishing as well as how to keep our identity safe. We also thought about how important it is to Stop and Think before you click.

It has been great to see how enthusiastic and knowledgeable our year 3-5 students are in this area and how well they are able to learn more through game-based learning. Check out some snapshots below!

Year 6

Year 6 students have continued their game design learning, exploring some more complex coding challenges such as creating a chatbot that can respond to questions, kind of like an automatic MSN Messenger for those of us that can remember it.

We've also been looking into AI and, in particular, machine learning. The students were challenged with the task of programming a robot to be able to sort information automatically. I think a few of them were concerned that they had provided their robot with too much data and information, so much so that it might take over the world!

Year 1 Cluster News