While technology has both pros and cons, there is no doubt that one of its positives is the power it has to bring people from all walks of life together.
This was recently demonstrated as Werrington County Public School hosted students from Cairns State Public School for a day of interactive technology sessions.
Cairns West State Public School teacher, Michael Thomas, said the visit to the local school would further enhance his students’ knowledge of technology.
“The overall aim of the visit is to gather expert knowledge in expert education and take that knowledge back to far north Queensland for our kids to be ambassadors for technology,” he said.
“They will be teaching all the kids at our school and teaching workshops for other kids in the region, with the teachers also taking back the same expert knowledge to share with our region.”
Working together as a team to create short videos about what it means to them to be an Australian, the collaborative project will see the students continue working online for the rest of the year.
But it’s not just new knowledge of technology that the kids will be taking back home with them. Cairns West student Codey Toft said it had also shown them a different side of life.
“It’s been really cool because we’ve been able to mix with other people that are from different states and see how they do stuff differently,” he said.
As part of the three-day trip, the six students from Cairns also visited Microsoft headquarters, The National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in Redfern, as well as getting a behind the scenes tour of the Penrith Panthers Academy.
“About 80 per cent of our kids are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and the makeup of our school is very multicultural, so everything has been new to them because this is the first time they are experiencing a world class city,” Mr Thomas said.
School Captain of Werrington County Public School, Blake Cannon, said the day had resulted in them making new lifelong friends.
“It just shows how different our lives can be but how nice and caring everyone still is,” he said.
“Just because we all have different backgrounds, it doesn’t mean we can’t get along.”
Lauren Suttie
Lauren Suttie is the Weekender's General & Community News journalist.