Recently, a number of Technology students across Year 7 and 8 spent a day working on a pilot IT program with Tata Consultancy, a global IT company with 450,000 employees. As a part of Tata’s social responsibility program, our students engaged in a day of design thinking to solve real world problems linked to the UN Global Sustainability goals, by designing and prototyping a phone app to solve a problem within one of the 17 global goals.
As a component of the GoIT program, students worked alongside industry experts using a range of technology. In the Trade Training Centre several computers and devices joined Google Meet sessions which allowed our mentors the opportunity to oversee the students at work and provide input and feedback across the day. Furthermore, there were several opportunities for our student teams to speak directly with the mentors in their place of work.
The day of immersion allowed our students some time to appreciate the reach of computer sciences and IT in most career paths, and mentors were able to elaborate on some of the misconceptions of the field. Together with mentors, we unpacked the global sustainability goals and the student groups then entered their design thinking stage by choosing one goal that resonated with them. Students completed activities from internet research, ideation and brainstorming, and ensured that they worked with a sense of empathy for those they’re aiming to design the app for. On their personal devices, students commenced wireframing and prototyping in Adobe XD, which allowed the groups to work collaboratively from their own devices and contribute to the group design in real-time.
Staff and mentors were impressed by our young SCAS designers, who spoke confidently and independently as they pitched, evaluated and were provided feedback from mentors based in Australia and the USA. Our aim is to not only build student confidence in IT, but to ensure their designs consider global issues with empathy and compassion as they better understand citizenship and how technology can provide solutions to an array of global challenges.
This is only the beginning, with students now continuing to develop their designs in class and working towards a final presentation with mentors on 30th November. They are yet to test, evaluate and undertake some coding to get their designs ready for presentation. We anticipate, as we get closer to this event, that parents will be provided a link and timetable for the live-streamed event.
Daniel Zavone – Director of Steam
Justin Munro – Coordinator Design, Art and Technology
Gemma Rainger – Technology Teacher
