Delivering the Digital World

At MOC, we believe in ‘delivering the world’ directly to our students, enabling access to whatever resources they want – when they want.

Digital devices should be seen as an opportunity to level the education playing field and for creating, not just for consuming.

This supports our philosophy that along with entitlement and equity, technology must be used to facilitate the leveling of the playing field and to foster a curiosity to learn and create.

Digital Roll-out

A key principle of our learning structure is that applying innovation is a cornerstone of our overall practice; in applying that principle, we began our digital device program in mid-2010 when there were no devices in the hands of any student.

By February of 2012, there were nearly 1500 devices being used daily by children and their teachers.

This is an exceptionally rapid roll-out of technology and is best described as “going viral”, skipping 18 of the 21 steps for a 1:1 digital device programme.

Digital Device Distribution

There are now over 2000 digital devices at the College, distributed as below:-

  • Apple iPads from Foundation through Year 6
  • Lenovo Chromebooks – Years 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12
  • Apple MacBook Air 2020 (M1) – ARC
  • Apple MacBook Air 2019 – Teaching staff
  • Apple Macbook Air – Support Staff
  • Gaming / Programming Specialist Suite – Dell / Windows OS
  • VET & Photography Specialist Suites – Dell / Windows OS

Digital Citizenship

The school foregoes traditional ICT device and application training in favour of just-in-time mentoring and guided risk-taking. There is no ‘introduction program’ for students or teachers before we rollout devices – we provide the device and we let the user tell us what it can do.

Students from Foundation to Year 6 all have class time access to their device.

MOC Senior Years students have 24/7 access to their devices. Middle Years have access 6 hours per day 5 days per week. Students from both the Senior and Middle Years can take devices anywhere on the school grounds. The school provides the IT infrastructure to facilitate the effective use of those devices wherever they roam.

Students manage their devices through online Self-Service kiosks, ICT remotely providing what they want or need. All devices can drive any piece of technology in the college, e.g., digital displays, 3D printers, interactive whiteboards, etcetera.

We have new ‘creative industries’ curriculum offerings as a result, for example, what was traditionally technical studies such as Woodwork or Metalwork is now Design and Engineering, utilising 3D Design and 3D printing, and what previously existed as a traditional ICT programme is now Gaming, Multimedia, and Programming.

Digital Identity

The College has a Multimedia and Social Media focus which provides the College with a means to show a public-facing presence to the wider world. The MOC Facebook page directly communicates to the wider community messages, events and the work occurring in our classrooms, as does this website. The main College page has nearly 3500 followers. In addition, the sub-schools support their own Facebook pages via which the sub-schools target information to their communities. The College’s work in social media has been previously acknowledged and recognised by DECD as leading practice.

The focus on Multimedia starts from the very beginning, in our Foundation classes. Teachers are highly empowered and supported as they adopt bolder approaches to using the technology in a myriad of ways appropriate to the learning context and are encouraged to create digital projects and online presence for which their classes can engage and participate, underpinning the use of a digital device from the outset of a child’s journey throughout their schooling.

Digital Resources

In line with our philosophy of ‘delivering the world into our classrooms’, incorporating our ongoing program of innovation and improvement, we recently completed upgrades to our wireless IT infrastructure and adopted the Department for Education’s SWiFT digital delivery platform to provide our teachers and students with fast and simple access to the ultimate in multimedia educational experiences.

In addition to our traditional library and resource centre, we provide a vast digital library of content comprising over 10,000 educational videos, study guides, videos, photos, music, documents, etcetera, which are hosted in two central digital libraries. Teachers and students get immediate access to this content from whichever device they happen to have in hand.

The Mark Oliphant College ICT User Agreement can be found at the link below.

MOC ICT User Agreement