Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday I was very happy to host our Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, during a visit to one of the many state primary schools in my electorate, Blackburn Lake Primary School. Having previously visited the school back in May this year, I had seen for myself what a great atmosphere and wonderful teaching environment exist at the school. The care and attention of the teachers, the close involvement of the parents and the leadership displayed by the Principal, Mr David Jewell, make Blackburn Lake Primary a great example of a state school that matches the needs of its community.

There are 26 primary schools in my electorate of Deakin, and I am sure that the Prime Minister would be more than happy to visit as many of them as possible in the future. But for now I would like to describe what we saw at Blackburn Lake Primary. In the prep school class area, we watched and joined in as the children went through various literacy and numeracy exercises. The teachers composed these in a way that was both fun and exciting for the kids—and you could really see the enthusiasm on their faces.

We also sat down with the prep school children and watched them do counting and addition exercises by using an interactive whiteboard. With colour, movement and sound, the kids could not wait to get up for their turn to show off their maths skills to us, each of them standing up and counting the objects on the screen and then writing their answers in the boxes at the bottom of the screen. It was really interesting to see kids of only five or six years old wanting to be that involved in learning. Each and every one got their answer right, and the interactive whiteboard played different sounds and music for each answer. Although I have seen and used interactive whiteboards before, this is the first time I have witnessed children of that age use interactive whiteboards.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might not see it again because you have ditched the Investing in Our Schools program.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Plenty of money to come there, and you know it.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Deakin will ignore the interjections.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Although I have seen and used interactive whiteboards before, as I said, this is the first time that I have witnessed their use by such young children. Blackburn Lake has six interactive whiteboards, of which one is located in the library, and a total of 12 classes get to use the whiteboards in their lessons. So almost 350 students benefit from the use of this new technology in the classroom and enjoy it every day. But there are 17 classrooms at the school, and that means that sometimes there are students missing out on access to this technology. However, interactive whiteboards are not cheap. Costing around $6,000 for each unit, along with software and installation costs, they are not an item that every school can afford, and they have not necessarily been provided.

Each interactive whiteboard has facilities to connect to the internet or any other computer application whilst operating on their own software. The interactive whiteboards are particularly useful in engaging reluctant learners, for whom such equipment tends to have a natural appeal. In many ways it can look similar to a video game, with its colourful display that both attracts and holds the children’s attention.

Each of the six interactive whiteboards at Blackburn Lake Primary was paid for by local fundraising of the school community over a number of years through ventures such as school fetes, canteen sales and other fundraising ideas. Up until now there has been no government funding provided for any provision of interactive whiteboards at the school. Technology such as this, that improves learning outcomes in the class, should be made available to all students so that every child has a better chance of realising their potential. I would certainly encourage anyone who doubts the benefits of modern teaching equipment such as this to have a look for themselves to see what a difference it can make—not only for junior schools but for senior schools as well. I believe that there is a real need to expand the use of interactive whiteboards in our primary school education system, and I will certainly be advocating the cause wherever I can—to see if funding can be provided at state or federal level, or a combination of both, to speed up the installation and use of this wonderful technology.

Finally, I would like to thank the school principal, Mr David Jewell, and the Victorian state education department for helping to organise the visit. I would also like to thank the many teachers and parents to whom we spoke to that afternoon whilst touring the school facilities. But I would especially like to say a big thank you to all the students for their polite behaviour and great personal interest in welcoming the Prime Minister and me into their school.