Lending Library

To support Australian teachers, and with renewed support of the Australian Government Department of Education, CSER runs a National Lending Library program that provides schools with access to the latest equipment for the classroom.

National Lending Library

Sample of Lending Library equipment including merge cubes, Virtuali-tee, Virtual Reality headsets, AR space kits and more. 

This program enables you to integrate a huge range of exciting and motivating Digital Technologies educational equipment into your classroom.

You can request to borrow, for free, a selection of Digital Technologies educational equipment that is accompanied by lesson plans based on our CSER MOOCs, designed for different age groups and mapped to relevant content descriptors in the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies learning area.

The library kits are designed to complement CSER's professional learning offerings (e.g. enrolment in a CSER MOOC or participation in a CSER workshop), and priority is given to schools that participate. Priority is also given to schools in remote or regional locations, schools with high First Nations Australian student enrolments and schools with lower ICSEA scores.

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN BORROWING A LIBRARY KIT

 

Available kits

We have developed and loaned a variety of kits, including robotics, engineering electronics, tablets with coding apps and more. Our current kits, funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, include a focus on Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) apps and technologies. 

Each kit includes equipment for a classroom and any required consumables, along with a welcome pack with instructions, lesson plans and return postage. Please click on the kits below to find out more information.

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN BORROWING A KIT

 

Supporting resources

We have developed a range of lesson plans, resources and professional learning webinars, linked to the Australian Curriculum, to support the use of our kits in classrooms or for schools that already have equipment but who are looking for inspiration and advice. Lesson plans are included with each lending library kit and can also be downloaded from our website below. You will find lesson plans and associated resources for our current kits in AI, VR and AR below. You can find our past lending library kit lesson plans on our Resources page.

 

Case studies of kits in action

Our Lending Library program has been operating since 2016, with over 2,100 kits sent to schools far and wide across Australia. Learn how our kits (current and past equipment) are used in schools and for professional learning workshops in our selected case studies below. For more examples, see our Your Stories News series. 

Map of Australia indicating where kits have been sent

  • VR and AR First Nations Australian architecture - 2022 STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress

    The CSER Team were very pleased to be part of the STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress again in Adelaide this year. We were fortunate to once again collaborate with our friends at ATSIMA (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance) on a hands on workshop with congress participants. 

    The congress provides an opportunity for industry and education sector representatives to support Aboriginal learners in the important areas of STEM, The Young Aboriginal STEM Thinkers of Adelaide (YASTA) did an excellent job of creating an engaging event with wonderful guest speakers including past YASTA and congress participants who are now working in or studying STEM at tertiary level. 

    We loved working with ATSIMA to run 2 workshops on First Nations architecture using VR, AR & craft materials! In groups the students learned about geodesic dome structures, saw examples from different Indigenous communities and then created their own interpretations using CoSpaces on iPads, Tiltbrush on Oculus Quest VR headsets and physically with playdough, paper, tape, textas and more! 

    We had two very noisy, happy and engaged groups of students over the two days and we hope to support the event next year! It was very inspiring and we thank the SA Department for Education on inviting us to the event. 

    Thanks also to the Australian Government Department of Education for supporting the CSER National Lending Library.

    2022 STEM Congress images, vr, cospaces, craft, Toni, Susie, Caty

    Original story posted on CSER STEM Professional Learning news page.

  • Designing First Nations Australian fishing traps and nets - 2021 STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress

    Earlier this month, the Young Aboriginal STEM Thinkers of South Australia (YASTSA) hosted the 2021 STEM Aboriginal Student Congress. The congress provides an opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people to explore all areas of STEM and to see the connections of their enduring cultural history with the innovations of today. 

    It is the largest STEM event of its kind in Australia for Indigenous students and the CSER Team were fortunate to collaborate with our colleagues at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance (ATSIMA) to run four Virtual Reality Workshops during the congress. 

    Students participated in a rapid design team challenge collaborating to create fish trap designs on paper initially, then progressing to recreating the design in 3D using Virtual Reality and the TiltBrush app with the CSER Lending Library Oculus Quest VR kits. 

    Their creations were so detailed! We were able to view the designs by transferring them to SketchFab and viewing them on the conference room monitor together. See an example of the wonderful designs below.

    Thanks to YASTA and the SA Department for Education for inviting us to present. The CSER Lending Library is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment. Original story published on the CSER STEM Professional Learning page. 

  • Virtual Reality across the Curriculum at Gleeson College, South Australia

    Gleeson College, in the north eastern suburbs of South Australia, was one of the first to borrow a CSER Virtual Reality Oculus Quest Kit from the CSER AI, AR and VR National Lending Library. They grabbed this opportunity with gusto and used the kit across multiple year levels and subject areas. Despite the pandemic, Gleeson students were able to experience virtual travel and connection with international students via their engagement in VR.

    image of student using VR headset

    Melissa O'Loughlin from Gleeson has documented their experience for us to share with the CSER community in a CSER STEM Professional News story. We were also fortunate to have Melissa O'Loughlin and Jason Puttnins, from Gleeson College share the many engaging ways they used the VR kit to enhance learning across the curriculum in a free online teacher professional webinar. You can view the webinar on-demand below.

  • Coding Spheros at Macleay Island State School, Queensland

    Simon Bliss, Teaching Principal, supporting Macleay Island State School, worked with students at Macleay Island State School (QLD) to extend their robotics learning in the classroom to include Spheros using a kit from the CSER's Lending Library. 

    Apps were loaded onto school ipads. 'Sphero Play' was the app of choice and a great introduction to the ever-expanding potential of the Spheros. 

    Macleay Island students programming sphero with ipad

    Some of the highlights of using the kits across the school:

    • Year 3 explored Sphero Play in class time and tested each application which can be seen in the picture log.
    • Spheros were also used by students in the sensory room before school to calm and regulate to improve their learning. 
    • One of our students became the expert mentor for others in the sensory room.
    • The library became the epicentre of Sphero app testing. All ages of students worked together to co-learn the Sphero Play apps. 

    The pictures tell the story; the game controller, slingshot, free driving, voice control and the rest kept our Macleay students totally focused on innovation. Simon said that seeing the new "Machine" film on AI recently reinforced the purpose of Macleay's experimentation with robotics and that they appreciated CSER and the University of Adelaide loaning Macleay Island State School the Sphero robots.

    This story was originally posted on the CSER STEM Professional Learning news page.

  • Ozobots On Country in Western Australia

    Ozobots undertook a road trip from Kununurra to Broome with Project Officer Robin McKeen, while also stopping at several remote schools, including Dawul, Bayulu and Fitzroy Crossing, for a visit to their Years 2 and 3 classrooms and a Valley Network Meeting at the District High School. The Ozobots worked to delight everyone while introducing some On Country digital technology learning opportunities.

    A range of picture books and Dreamtime stories were used to provide a visual stimulus and connect with coding when the Ozobots were used to retell the stories. 

    'The Sand Symbols' by Nola Turner- Jensen was the perfect starting point for some Kimberley style computational thinking and used as a springboard for story mapping back in the classroom using colour codes for the Ozobots to follow the symbols and stories.

    'Big Rain Coming' by Katrina Germein inspired students to retell this story by creating a week-long calendar timeline and then coding the Ozobots to perform special moves according to the weather patterns for each day of the story. There were some high-performance moves on the Friday when the ‘thick grey clouds over the hills were echoing with thunder’ and banging and swirling with Ozobots coded for a turbo boost before the rain came on the Saturday with a happy dance for the ‘Wonderful cool wet RAIN’.

    Older students used AR to connect with the sky as a textbook and then worked the Ozobots through  moon stories that explained the phases of the man in the moon in combination with some equally scientific coding of Eclipses and Orbits.

    More work with algorithms was made possible through the pages of 'Our World Bardi-Jaawi -  Life at Ardiyooloon' by (near neighbours) One Arm Point Remote Community School. Students enjoyed replicating the pandanus toys, creating wind turbines and designing spiral galaxies before being introduced to TBone the Drone by Shanda McClosky to finish off with a design thinking challenge.

    On a personal note, Robin says that she loved being introduced as Miss Robin but being spontaneously farewelled as Nana Robin from classrooms where kids, teachers and parents all had fun together.

    Kimberley Road Trip

    This story was originally published on the CSER STEM Professional Learning new story page.

 

This program is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education. 

If you would like to connect with us about funding our programs that have real impact on schools across Australia, please email us at cser@adelaide.edu.au.