Summary

A folder containing examples of work produced by First Peoples students from Braiakalung, Wemba Wemba, Kurung, at school Camp Jungai in Rubicon, near Eildon, in 1984, and Camp Brigundi, Merricks, in 1985.

These camps were organised by the Victorian Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, first established in 1976. Operating as educational transition camps, they were offered to assist students in as they transitioned from grade 6 to year 7. The scrapbook documents Sunrise computer sessions at the camps run by Dr. Liddy Nevile and her team. It includes work the students did on computers including story writing and programming. Each camp produced a newsletter in 1984 that was called the 'Koorie Kourier' and this scrapbook includes the 1st and 2nd editions. In 1985 it was called Brigundi News and this scrapbook includes the 7 January, 9 January and 10 January editions.

This object forms part of the Sunrise Collection which includes educational robots, software and multimedia recordings of teachers and students, mainly in Victoria, exploring new possibilities with computer programming. 'Computational thinking' in a constructionist environment was emerging in Victoria throughout the 1980s and 90s.

Physical Description

A loose-leaf folder of many A4 pages of roneo-graphed or printed work on white and coloured pages, encased in 20 clear plastic sleeves, bound in a blue-plastic folder. It also includes 2 computer floppy discs for the ATARI computer in paper sleeves and in a clear plastic zip-bag.

Significance

The Sunrise Collection is comprised of microcomputer and robotics hardware and software as well as audio-visual and print materials that document their use as educational technologies by students and teachers in schools and other education settings during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although a very small number of Australian schools had explored computing as part of their educational offerings in the 1970s, it was during the 1980s, driven by technological innovation in micro computing and developments in computer education policies and funding, that computers and computing became a common feature of Australian schools. In historical context, three features of the Sunrise Collection establish its significance.

Firstly, the collection preserves some key technical hardware that was actually deployed in educational settings during this nascent period of computer education in Australia.
Secondly, the collection documents how teachers, students and other stakeholders responded to and reflected upon their engagement with these technologies at the time. The images in particular capture the early experience of computers for students from a diversity of educational environments; Geelong Grammar preparatory school, MLC, Yooralla, Princes Hill Secondary School and Victorian Aboriginal Educational Association run camps.
Thirdly, the collection documents the development and implementation of a particular exploratory and progressive approach to educational computing in Australia. This 'Sunrise' approach challenged policy makers and educators to think of computers as presenting an opportunity to radically reform practices of learning and teaching rather than simply being a new technology to be integrated into existing practice.

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