A Workshop on Social Media Apps for Year-10 Students: An Exploratory Case Study on Digital Technology Education in Regional Australia

Abstract

A designated hands-on workshop on social media apps was conducted for two groups of Year-10 students from three schools in or near Rockhampton, an outer regional city in Australia, before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was hosted in a computer laboratory on the Rockhampton campus of the Central Queensland University of Australia. Statistical analyses of the students' responses to the interactive practices during the workshop indicated that social media apps were widely used among the school students living in Australian regional communities, but their general digital literacy seemed below the educational goals for Year-10 students required in the national digital technologies curriculum (DTC). The encouraging sign was that some students expressed a genuine desire and interest in learning more digital technologies and creating purposeful digital applications. In Australia, however, there is no national specialist DTC for students in Years 11 and 12. Hence, it may be worthwhile to consider designing and implementing advanced national specialist digital curriculum for senior students in Years 11 and 12 who are true lovers of digital technologies. Some thoughts on improving STEM education outcomes in secondary schools in regional areas are also shared.

Exploratory Case Study on Solving Word Problems Involving Triangles by Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers in a Regional University in Australia

“…By the classification of Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas (RRMA), Australian regions are classified into five categories of Major Cities, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote, and Very Remote areas [23]. Except Major Cities, the other four regions are commonly referred to as the regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas which cover more than 95% of the Australian territory [23,24]. In the rest of this paper, Section 2 introduces the background of the RRR areas in Australia and characteristics of the RRR students, from which the research method is chosen for this study.…”

“…By the classification of Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas (RRMA), Australian regions are classified into five categories of Major Cities, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote, and Very Remote areas [23]. Except Major Cities, the other four regions are commonly referred to as the regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas which cover more than 95% of the Australian territory [23,24].…”