Right: Doveton North Primary School teacher Garry O’Shanassy with students Andrew, Krystal and Taylah and the branch manager of Dandenong’sCommonwealth Bank, Mandy Rowe. The bank has awarded the school $5000 to establish an online maths program.By Rebecca Fraser
STUDENTS at Doveton North Primary School will be honing their problem solving skills after being awarded $5000 last week to set up an online maths program.
The elearning grant is funded by the Commonwealth Bank Foundation and is designed to enhance the literacy, numeracy and financial literacy skills of students through innovative and creative online learning programs.
Doveton North was one of 70 Australian schools to receive the grants out of more than 1100 applicants. The successful applicants were announced at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney as part of the National Literacy and Numeracy Week 2005 Excellence Awards for Schools ceremony. Doveton North’s initiative is titled ‘Webmath Challenge: an elearning program for openended problem solving in Mathematics’.
The project will involve students communicating with other students from nearby schools via email to solve mathematical problems and share their solutions online.
Barry McLean, Commonwealth Bank area manager for South Eastern Victoria, congratulated the school staff and students.
“It’s great to see the level of enthusiasm schools have in developing the life skills of literacy, numeracy and financial literacy in young Australians,” Mr McLean said.
“We are proud to be able to support schools in our community through the Commonwealth Bank Foundation eLearning Grant program.”
Doveton North information technology and senior school coordinator Garry O’Shanassy, who helped to formulate the submission, said the new initiative would also benefit neighbouring schools.
“Each fortnight a maths question will be posted and students in the cluster from Endeavour Hills to Eumemmerring and from both high schools and primary schools will be encouraged to submit their problem solving strategies and send them through via email.
“These will then be posted on the website and two weeks later another question will be posted.
“At the end of it we will have about 40 questions which people can use as an educational tool – that is just fantastic,” he said.
The eLearning Grants program was first offered in 2002 and to date has contributed $1.4 million to 280 Australian primary schools. Further details on Doveton North’s project is available at www.commbank.com.au/elearninggrants
