Digital Technology and eLearning The Preparatory School continued to embrace the new Digital Technology curriculum in 2021. A new programme from Year 3 to Year 8 was developed. The Preparatory School teachers worked alongside Anneke Kamo and Wilj Dekkers to facilitate these lessons each week during Term 1. The focus was for the students to build on and consolidate their skills in communicating and accessing information through digital platforms. These skills proved to be crucial as we encountered another lockdown and learning from home was reintroduced. The students were able to confidently use Teams, OneNote, and Seesaw and were able to share their learning with their teachers. Robotics is a highlight of our Digital Technology programme at St Andrew’s College. In 2021, a Robotics programme of learning was introduced, which focused on the computational thinking section of the curriculum. This programme was taught in Years 1–7, for one term per class. In Year 1, the students began by learning basic unplugged coding skills. They then progressed to coding the Beebots, which are small and easy to use robots. In Year 2 and 3, the students progressed to using the BlueBots. The BlueBots are controlled via Bluetooth on the iPads and were new to our programme this year. They were thoroughly enjoyed by the students. In Years 4–7 we used the EV3 robots alongside the new EV3 classroom app.
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The new app, which was available on all classroom Surface Go laptops, was a welcome addition due to its ease of use. In 2022 the current EV3 robots we use are being discontinued. Some research will need to go into the replacement of these robots in the next year or two. Along with the Digital Literacy programme, the Year 8 students also completed two terms of Digital Technology lessons where there was a focus on Minecraft Education. The students have a comprehensive set of skills when using this tool and their finished projects were impressive. The digital skills taught during 2021 enabled the students to be successful at school and remotely at home. We will continue to add to and enhance these programmes in 2022.
