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Our school's Digital Dreaming is a unique project that blends tradition with technology by developing computer animations of traditional stories and embedding them into an interactive software package that is shared across the school. Teachers, students, elders and artists have worked together to create a product that enables all students at our school to access cultural histories through a modern, engaging interface.

Over a seven year period this project has evolved from a web based ‘virtual field trip’ of the Yarrabah community into an interactive literacy software package containing five highly engaging computer animations of traditional Aboriginal stories; rich with student input, proudly supported by the community and demonstrating cross curricular ICT integration.

This project focuses on connecting Aboriginal children with their culture and has sourced the expertise of a range of professions, government and private organisations and talented individuals to provide rich learning experiences for numerous cohorts of students as each animation has developed. The software is used on a daily basis by students of all ages and contains local sounds recorded by children, music and didgeridoo played by children, artwork created by children, narration with children’s voices and animations developed by children. This rich content is woven together with the input of professional artists, talented musicians, local songs and voices, narration by traditional elders, advice from linguists and educational professionals and the input of numerous experienced and dedicated teachers.

Digital Dreaming is an innovative project that interprets the curriculum from a digital perspective whilst acknowledging the importance of making learning relevant to the students it’s presented to. Cohorts of students have achieved significant educational outcomes in various key learning areas, while at the same time investigating the time-lines of their history and the wonders of their own sense of place.