Last week 83 primary school pupils in P6/7 from Banff and Macduff took on a project whereby they used technology to become creators, generators and disseminators of knowledge. They exemplified the disruptive classroom technologies and the T3 framework as practiced and promoted by Dr Sonny Magana.
The primary pupils in Banff and Macduff carried out research into the history and heritage of their respective towns and their local visitor attraction, Duff House, the Georgian estate house managed by Historic Environment Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland, they then created three treasure trails and uploaded them into the award-winning tourism app Global Treasure Apps.
Confidence in digital literacy is essential for children as they adapt to their ever-changing digital environment, and innovative digital classroom and field trip projects like the one undertaken in Banff and Macduff primaries improves young people’s confidence as well their engagement and achievement. The pupils have created a valuable digital resource for the whole community to enjoy as well as inbound tourists; there are 50,000 users of Global Treasure Apps – 100 downloads a day in high season.
The pupils have gone from passive consumers of technology to active participants and knowledge creators, and their passion for investigation and shared learning has been encouraged and rewarded.
Dr Sonny Magana would be impressed. He is a long-time advocate of using technology as a means to achieve gains in educational achievement.
Frances O’Neill of Global Treasure Apps says “This is the first time we have worked with P6/7 pupils. Our usual cohort are secondary pupils and college students, and we are really impressed at the level of pupils’ engagement and the ease with which they were able to transform from passive players of digital treasure trails to active participants in treasure trail creation. We hope the next stage of the project will involve the pupils further sharing their work by creating a social media campaign to promote their fantastic town trails.”
For further information about Global Treasure Apps please visit www.globaltreasureapps.com