The Project, Our Story (Wood, 2018) is based around the concept of creating a sense of identity and shared history for the new community that is St Aloysius Primary School. As a community St Aloysius does not have the luxury of a reputation and history built upon generations of families attending the same school. Due to this, the school’s major priority moving forward is to share the story of the school’s foundations with both the wider community in such a way that allows for revision, addition and interactivity as the school continues to evolve and grow. The driving factor behind this project is to involve all members of the community, so that they are in turn engaged in the education of their children as research shows that students’ achievement levels improve when parents and carers are involved (Department of Education and Training Australia, 2018).

With this in mind the subject matter of the Our Story (Wood, 2018) project is an eclectic mix of the Religious/cultural aspects of the school’s foundation and the Educational philosophy that underpins the teaching and learning environment that is St Aloysius Catholic Primary School. The Project acknowledges the traditional owners of the land, the Wonnarua people (Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Coporation, 2014) and shares the origin story of the school’s patron saint, St Aloysius (Martin, 2015). It also discusses the primary religious charism that influences the school, that of the Mercy Sisters (Sisters of Mercy, 2018), sharing how all these aspects come together to influence the school and our community’s actions today.

Dovetailed into this narrative is the explanation of the origins of the school’s main educational philosophy, the four Pillars of Learning (UNESCO, 2017), giving readers a brief description and links to examine this further. Lastly the story explains the next step in the school’s story introducing readers to the PBL (Positive Behaviour for Learning) initiative (NSW Government Education School, 2018) that will be implemented in Term 4 2018.

The main audience for the project, as mentioned above is the wider school community. In the case of a Catholic school this encompasses both the current and perspective parents/carers and students as well as the connected parish community. Research shows that students who have carers and parents connected with their education achieve better and more lasting results (Department of Education and Training Australia, 2018). The Our Story (Wood, 2018) project endeavours to do just that, allowing the wider community to access and make connections to the story of St Aloysius Catholic Primary School.

A secondary audience are the school’s Stage Three students. The Reading and Viewing Outcomes in the Stage 3 in the NSW English Curriculum (NESA, 2017) can be accessed through this project. The Our Story (Wood, 2018) project allows students to view a digital text that can be accessed both in a linear and non-linear fashion, developing both reading and critical analysis skills (Reid, 2013). As well as the English curriculum the project allows students to evaluate the way systems collect and disseminate information, a key content point in the new NSW Science syllabus (NESA, 2018). Concurrently it also allows students to study various content points found in the Stage 3 units of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocesan Religious Education Syllabus (Maitland-Newcastle CSO, 2018), whilst exposing students to one of the many forms of digital literature that can be found on the internet.

The choice of StoryMap js. (Knight Lab, 2018) as the tool was made after extensive research into various online digital story making tools. It was chosen due to its ease of access for potential users of the product, as it can be accessed through a url link or through embedding the finished story into a website or blog (Knight Lab, 2018). This was an important consideration, as this was the preferred method of sharing for the school. The digital format allows the predominant audience, the wider school community to experience digital literature, because like when dealing with students, as Hall (2012) states; we can not assume they are digital natives. The digital affordances found within Storymap js. (Knight Lab, 2018) allow the readers to access the content at a level and manner relevant to their own abilities and knowledge (Walsh, 2013).

The project itself is accessed in a linear fashion by scrolling through the different content areas, but can also be accessed in a non-linear fashion by clicking the mapping points, external links and being able to go both forward and backward through the content slides. This allows the reader control over their experience, thus creating interaction and motivation (Kitson, 2011).

Another area of consideration was the ability to update and add to the story as the school evolves. A digital text created using Storymap js. allows the creator to constantly add to, edit and change the story as needed. This was very important considering the young age of the school, just under 4 years old and the continued growth that will occur long into the future.

References

Department of Education and Training Australia. (2018, September 4). Parent Engagement in Learning. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/parent-engagement-learning-0

Hall, T. (2012). Digital renaissance: The creative potential of narrative technology in education. Creative Education, 3(1), 96-100. Retrieved from http://file.scirp.org/Html/17301.html

Kitson, L. (2011). Reconceptualising understandings of texts, readers and contexts: One english teacher’s response to using multimodal texts and interactive whiteboards. English in Australia, 46(3).

Martin S.J., J. (2015, June). A Most Misunderstood Saint. America The Jesuit Review. Retrieved from https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/most-misunderstood-saint

Maitland-Newcastle CSO. (2018). Diocesan K-12 RE Syllabus. Retrieved from https://www.mn.catholic.edu.au/media/2728/diocesan-re-syllabus.pdf

NESA: New South Wales Education Standards Authority. (2017). English K-10 – Stage 3 – Objective A – Reading and Viewing. Retrieved from https://syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/english/english-k10/content/893/

NESA: New South Wales Education Standards Authority. (2018). Science K-10 – Stage 3 – Content – Working Scientifically. Retrieved from https://syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/science/science-k10/content/972/

Knight Lab. (2018). StoryMap JS. Retrieved from https://storymap.knightlab.com/

NSW Government Education School. (2018). About PBL. Retrieved from http://www.pbl.schools.nsw.edu.au/about-pbl

Skoolbag. (2018). St Aloysius Catholic Primary School. Retrieved from http://www.chisholm.catholic.edu.au/web/

Sisters of Mercy. (2018). From Past to Present. Retrieved from https://mercy.org.au/

Wood, A. (2018). Our Story – St Aloysius Catholic Primary School. Retrieved from https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/465ad0c3e628096b515b6382c883d9fc/st-aloysius-gonzaga/index.html