School of the Air (and Internet)

Last Saturday I met a family from Tanami Downs, a station out on the Tanami road.  The 9 year old girl studies by School of the Air, another of John Flynn's projects.  These days it is more School of the Internet, as they use computers for their lessons, and a Skype type program for chatting with their teachers.  Twice a year they come into town and have a week with the teachers and other kids, where they get a chance to do group work and do a bit of sightseeing.  This time they stayed at the Old Telegraph Station, and recreated what school would have been like for children in the 'old days'.  The girls wore bonnets and they addressed the teachers as they would have 100 years ago. Here is a link the Alice Springs School of the Air.  The first transmission was made from the Royal Flying Doctor Base.

http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/index.html

My new friend spoke animatedly, non-stop about the week, the songs, and what she had been learning.  She also introduced me to some words from the two languages of her family - two quite different Aboriginal languages.  It put a whole new perspective on multilingualism, for here is a young girl who lives 12 hours away from Alice Springs on a dirt road, and yet she is fluent in English and is being taught 2 other languages. 

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My work is interesting and every day I gather information from my colleagues (in fact anyone I meet), which will better prepare me for meeting my students next week, and for delivering my courses through workshops and online delivery (the modern distance education).   For many this is new and confronting, just as it is for anyone being introduced to technology and university study simultaneously.  There are the added complications of Internet access and speed in remote areas.  I'm sure I will find out more about the problems next week.

I am lucky that everyone I meet is so willing to share what they know, and we are constantly learning from each other.  At the moment I am preparing a course in Classroom Management, and I am most impressed that this is actually taught these days.  In the past, teachers learnt more by trial and error, and observing what did and didn't work for other teachers.  I'm a strong advocate of anything which reduces the pain a teacher needs to go through in the journey to being a great teacher.