Welcome to the start page for year 5 students learning Digital Technologies at St. Andrews Christian College. All continuous learning resources will be published here and content may change regularly. If your child is in a different year level you should find appropriate links on this page.
My name is Gary Ong and I own and control this website which I’ve been using to help students make digital creations during class. Due to health and safety restrictions this website will now be the primary resource for students to continue their learning in Digital Technologies.
Kind regards
-Mr. Ong
Real world models in Minecraft
Building 3D structures in Minecraft is a fun activity that many students enjoy. This lesson focuses on the unique challenges students face when re-creating a real world structure in Minecraft. This will involve a lot of practical mathematics, creativity and a touch of...
Remixing Scratch Projects
There are many things to love about Scratch. The online Scratch community is definitely one of them. All shared projects in Scratch are public and available to everyone to use and examine how it was built. Furthermore, all shared projects can be 'remixed' which...
Introduction to Sketchup
Creating 3D models with computer aided design (CAD) software is complicated, but an important digital technology skill. Sketchup is a fantastic tool that has a web-based interface that is free for students to use from home for a limited time. So let's make use of it....
Pixel Art Animations on iPad
There are lots of iPad apps for doing pixel art. However, many students have school iPads that they cannot install apps on so this post will provide some tips for using pixilart.com using Safari on an iPad. When you first navigate to the pixilart.com website...
Pixel Art Animations
Introduction Being good at art does not mean you have to be great at drawing or painting. If you don't see yourself as the 'artistic' type this also does not mean that you are not creative. This is where technology plays an important role by giving students tools to...
Google Images – Searching Tips
Most students learn how to Google things pretty quickly. When it comes to images we do need to be careful that they aren't exposed to inappropriate materials as best we can. There are search engines that are built specifically for children, but I thought I would cover...
Uploading backgrounds to Scratch
The built-in Scratch backgrounds are pretty nice, but there are so much more available online. You can also make them yourself using websites like PosterMyWall.com. These instructions assume you have downloaded a background from Google Images or PosterMyWall and now...
PosterMyWall and Scratch
I really like the PosterMyWall.com website as a simple but powerful graphical editing tool. If we combine it with Scratch as an animating tool there are lots of things we can do. In this post I will describe several challenges for students to try. Challenge 1 -...
Online Safety (part 2)
This post is the second in a series that I introduced in my previous post. In part 2 we will discuss two more complex issues: privacy and scams. Mistakes in either of these areas can lead to serious consequences so I would usually reserve these topics for older...
Online Safety
Online safety is something everyone needs to know about. Younger students may not have the ability to publish things online, but the age at which they are capable of doing this is constantly decreasing. Talking about the dangers of using technology should not result...