Researchers from the DMRC’s Digital Inclusion & Participation program and the Children’s Technology Centre at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child ran a series of free workshops over the school holidays in conjunction with the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery.
Rural children often have less opportunity to engage with different technologies in playful and creative ways, and the workshops provided a chance for children to get hands-on with digital technology activities. The children embarked on a coding adventure, building landmarks and parks out of Duplo for their LEGO Coding Express to visit and watching as the train filmed its journey. Building on the Art Gallery’s recent collaboration with local schools on the theme of Caring for Nature in the Granite Belt, children in the workshops used Instax cameras to capture the fascinating world of the insects and plants of Stanthorpe and constructed and coded a LEGO robot inspired by nature.
As the latest Australian Digital Inclusion Index revealed, the digital divide between metropolitan and regional, rural and remote Australia is deepening, and the workshops were welcomed by the community as a way for their children to understand more about the potential of digital technology for improving the future.

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