The following video clip comes from the 2016 Junior Big Day In which is an initiative from the Australian Computer Society Foundation, hosted at the wonderful Hilltop Road Public School in Sydney’s west.

It is an example of what schooling could be like everyday with links between education and industry driving authentic and vital 21st century communication, creativity and computational thinking skills.

When you are looking at this clip, note the genuine excitement, discovery and engagement in the faces of the students and the teachers. Everyone is learning and making together with a real sense of purpose. This is what education should always be about.

This is the second year of the Junior Big Day In program which has grown to involve over 900 Year 5 & 6 NSW students.

image courtesy of ACS Foundation

Many of the technologies and activities on this day are affordable and accessible to most schools. In my travels around Australia and beyond, I see many schools establishing maker spaces and opening up these types of opportunities in their libraries and classrooms. However most of these learning activities are happening before school, recess, lunch time and after school. It appears as if this type of learning is not important enough to be integrated into the mainstream curriculum.

image courtesy of ACS Foundation

It is my dream that these type of activities are used regularly in classrooms all over the world to enhance student’s literacy, numeracy, science, history, geography, arts & physical skills. In doing so, students will be better prepared for lifelong learning in an every changing and uncertain future.

Wouldn’t it be nice if school was like this every day!

Thought leaders such as Marc Prensky and Professor Yong Zhao regularly share the importance of schools allowing students the opportunity to discover their passions and potentially turn those passions into 21st century employability and entrepreneurial skills such as:

Adobe Education Leader and teacher at Hilltop Road Public School, Brett Kent and his Principal Natalie See were instrumental in the planning of this day with the ACS Foundation. It is great to see some of Adobe’s creativity software being featured in the video.

Special thanks to John Ridge and Kerrie Bisaro from the ACS Foundation for putting this event together.

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Here is the video story I put together from the 2015 Junior Big Day In