As IT and Innovation leaders this year, we have learnt many skills, such as how to use different types of technology and craft devices like box cutters and Micro:bits. One of our favourite tools that we learnt to use was the hot glue gun. You can make many different things that you cannot with normal glue. We also learnt how to be more patient with younger kids by hosting clubs such as Minecraft Club. Overall, we have learnt many skills that we can use later in life. 

We helped run lunchtime clubs in Terms 1 and 3. On Tuesdays, this involved Makerspace where the students could design and create whatever they wanted using almost any of the resources in the Imaginarium. On Thursdays we held Coding Club for kindy, and on Wednesdays for Years 1 and 2. This was a club where the students could code robots or create code. 

We also ran a Minecraft Club for Years 5 and 6. The students involved were given something to create, for example, a city. They were then given the entire term to complete their project. At the end of the term, the IT Leaders would review the worlds and announce the winner/s. Even though there were some guidelines, people were really creative, with a city in the sky.

During at-home learning, we helped create a Virtual Flashmob video of students dancing to a Hebrew song. The Flashmob was made up of clips of students dancing at home, with students on the screen in the form of the Brady Bunch introduction. The team then edited the videos and put them into one clip. This cheered people up during at home learning and was definitely a fun experience!

In Term 3, we had the Innovation Festival. The festival was facilitated by UNSW Ph.D. students, through the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools Program, in association with FLEET. As the facilitators were on Zoom, the IT and Innovation Leaders helped to demonstrate experiments for younger years. The experiments included Walking Colours, Appearing Coins and Magic Milk!

We have also been working hard on the End of Year Video for Presentation Day. This has involved taking photos and making collages. We looked back at the year and looked forward to the year to come. This year made it hard to learn and have fun during the pandemic, but we thought of an innovative way to get past these challenges and make the most of what we could do. 

Our favourite part about being IT and Innovation leaders has been readjusting our goals and initiatives around the challenges of COVID-19.

During Terms 1 through 4, the IT and Innovation Leaders ran a Minecraft club for Years 5 and 6. Minecraft is an educational platform, used to test students’ creative abilities and imagination to create some extravagant virtual builds in different terrains, biomes and timelines. 

This term, Years 5 and 6 students needed to build a tree house in small groups or by themselves. Inspired by the Minecraft Education Global Build Championship, students were required to include design features that would enable animals to thrive in their world. We made a rubric to decide which world would win the challenge. This included aesthetics, creative use of blocks, size, use of colour, use of narrative as a theme, creative ideas and animal adaptability. 

Misha’s treehouse had a wonderful narrative behind it with great characters including an elder panda who was there since the beginning. He used some amazing design features and there was a strong connection to how animals could thrive.  Dylan Vitek and Ezra Glover-Sanders created this video of Misha explaining his world here.

By the Year 6 IT and Innovation Leaders