ICT REPORT

GROK

The countdown is on for the next Grok Challenge which starts on Monday 31 October. As with all these challenges, it will run for five weeks and will be offered at different levels - Newbies, Beginners and Intermediate. Any student who is trying out Grok for the first time should contact Mr Munro to get signed up. For students who have participated in the past, you should move up to a new level as this competition will be very similar to the NCSS challenge offered earlier in the year. We have had many students achieve great success in the Grok Challenges so let’s see if we can have even more student participating.

BEBRAS STATE FINALS

The Bebras Challenge is an International Challenge where students have to solve problems based around a concept called Computational Thinking. On Saturday 15 October, thirteen McKinnon Students who had performed well in the school Bebras Challenge were invited to Monash University for the State Finals. Over 100 students from all over Victoria were participating in separate events for Year 5-6, Years 7-8 and Years 9-10.

The students assembled and signed in before being taken away to complete fifteen puzzles of increasing difficulty. Students had 45 minutes on a computer to solve challenging problems which start off relatively easy and quickly become head-scratchingly complicated. During this time, parents were given a very entertaining talk by Eljakim Schrijvers, a gentleman from The Netherlands who is part of the International team behind Bebras. Kim explained some of the computational thinking concepts embedded in the puzzles and the links between the Bebras challenges and both Maths and ICT in schools.

After the competition had been completed it was time for presentations and success for one Year 9 McKinnon student. Stefan Simicwon the Year 9-10 State Final. This is an amazing result especially from a Year 9 student.

The students all agreed that it had been an interesting and fun competition and I’m sure all will be back next year, better prepared to do well. Congratulations go to Jordan Li, Ross McNaughton, Kathleen Sumarna, Caroline Monroe, Harry Fletcher, Jordan Marakhov, Mihai Petrescu, Jared Abidi, Antoine Mornet, Stefan Simic, William Lay, Sophie Sakurai, Natalie Truong and Emily Daemen for taking part in the first State Finals.

Calum Munro

IT Teacher

Photo: Stefan Simic holding his certificate.  Those present were Ms Emma Milburn GE Program Lead Digital, Asia and Pacific and Professor Bernd Meyer, Director Education Outreach, Faculty of IT, Monash University.