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Alice Springs School of the Air
Alice Springs School of the Air (ASSOA) traditionally offers a wide range of educational services and activities to isolated children in the Northern Territory of Australia and the South East of Western Australia. Alice Springs School of the Air was the first of its kind established in Australia. Queen Elizabeth II visited the school's campus in 2000. It is one of the two schools of the air in the Northern Territory provided by the Department of Education and Training (DET).
The school's main office is located at Head Street in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Alice Springs School of the Air provides distance and virtual school services for about 120 children living in settlements covering over 1million square kilometers of Central Australia. The children in Alice Springs School of the Air are taught quickly what has to be done, and when, and they organize themselves accordingly. They benefit from the individual guidance they receive while working through the lessons which are done at a rate best suited to each individual - and from the individual, personal attention which their teacher can devote to them. On the other hand it is equally obvious that the outback child’s development in some areas is different from that of his or her city counterpart. There are few children living together in each location and they are naturally used to having their own way. Some may be disadvantaged in some subjects because work has been skipped over by an unsure home tutor or because the child has been given too much assistance. Most students would gain a more normal perspective of their studies if they had more chances to participate in group situations and oral exercises and were able to observe the ideas and products of fellow students and compare them with their own efforts.
The change in the functions of the School of the Air and subsequent curricula changes have certainly made learning an easier, happier and more varied process in recent years. This is demonstrated by the reaction of parents, home tutor and students and is further reflected in the improved standard of work sent in for assessment. Tutors report a greater eagerness on the part of their students to settle down and study, to work for longer periods, to experiment with freer written expressions (including poetry) and to be more imaginative in setting out assignment work.
Interactive Distance Learning (IDL)
Alice Springs School of the Air in 2003 embarked on a major project involving the use of two way satellite equipment. The project and the subsequent implementation of the technology, and development of teaching materials and strategies saw the dawn of mordern form of interactive distance learning. The broad aim of the project was to establish a shared broadband interactive distance learning communication infrastructure for families, to enhance the quality of the learning experience. The basic technical concept of the project was to have a studio transmitting to remote sites equipped with a satellite, computer and relevant software. Any number of students can ‘logon’ to any session being transmitted. IDL was able to place the most isolated and the most disadvantaged at the forefront of telecommunications services with access to rapidly evolving distance learning pedagogy.
Three IDL studios have been established, one at the Alice Springs School of the Air (ASSOA), one at Katherine School of the Air (KSA), and one in Darwin at the Northern Territory Open Education Centre (NTOEC). NTOEC offers distance education to secondary age students throughout the Northern Territory and operates on a very different model to ASSOA for their normal delivery as well as their use of IDL. All three schools are now part of the Northern Territory Distance Learning Service.
At ASSOA each student site has a satellite dish and associated computer equipment that allows the reception of data, audio and visual feeds from the studio and the transmission of audio and data back to the studio. This allows the students to see and hear their teachers in real time as well as being able to speak and be heard by other students in the class. IDL also allows lessons where the teacher can demonstrate skills or learning processes, including, but certainly not limited to; music, singing, science demonstrations, physical education skills, drama, poetry, modelled reading and art. In addition to this, it allows for the integration of other video inputs such as DVDs, VHS and CDs. The teacher cannot see the students but having the students see the teacher is a huge improvement on HF radio. Teachers are in the process of working through different strategies and ways of using IDL. The school still makes use of traditional distance education material.
Alice Springs' web site is at http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au