Page 45 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 February 2018

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that it was a really great experience for us to be able to be taken through, from the students who will be using the Chromebooks, exactly how the Chromebooks will work and how they will assist in the child’s learning.

I have had very positive feedback already from the families of students who are receiving the Chromebooks as well as from students and teachers. In fact, yesterday I had a parent tell me how enthusiastic her daughter was to receive a Chromebook and how she was already planning her educational outcomes for the 2018 year. Some teachers have already put all of their work for the year on the Chromebook, available for the students. For some people, that might put them off a bit, but the students whom we were talking to were very happy to see the work already out and planned, and happy that they could go ahead and start using their Chromebooks effectively within their schools.

I will be visiting some other schools to check in with the Chromebook rollouts, 15,000 of them to years 7 to 11 secondary students in public schools. I look forward to hearing stories from students who receive them.

MS CODY: Minister, how will these devices support student learning?

MS BERRY: It will change the way that students learn in our schools. It will give teachers the opportunity to support students as well. Teachers have already received a lot of training—in November last year—on how the Chromebooks will be able to support students, and teachers, in their learning in school. There will be more pedagogical support training this year on how to better use the Read&Write for Google programs in schools.

If you have not seen how Chromebook works, I have a display model in my office and I would be happy to have my office or somebody from the directorate take members through the Google Classrooms and how they help students learn academically, and also how they can connect with each other and with their teachers every step of the way as they learn their schoolwork and also do their homework activities on the Google Chromebooks.

Being able to have their work plans on their Chromebooks has been a really great outcome for students: to be able to see where they have come from, where they want to go to and how they can achieve even better outcomes with their academic and other learning experience in our schools.

MR STEEL: Why is the government providing devices to public secondary school students?

MS BERRY: At the very forefront of the delivery of this excellent education election commitment is the very strong focus on equity to ensure that every student in year seven to 11 in public schools gets the same access to technological-assisted learning no matter what their background, that every family will not have to have the financial burden of purchasing a device or even having to decide what device would be the most appropriate and that every teacher will not have to be an expert across a number


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