Deniliquin High School recently unveiled their student created an Indigenous mural that celebrates Indigenous Australians who have used their culture to influence others and to create positive links between the school and the local Indigenous community.
The mural was created by students at the school, and special guest Adam Goodes was involved via a video conference connection on HDi Screens during the outdoor event. Adam spoke about his struggles in AFL to overcome racism and how education is key in bringing all Australians together.
He then took questions from the students and teachers where everybody could clearly see and hear what was happening.
The questions ranged from his career highlights and favourite food to how he overcomes adversity and racism directed towards him and his culture. Adam spoke with honesty and passion about his struggles during his life and how he seeks help from people around him to help guide him through difficult times whilst being a role-model himself to others.
Mr Matt Kiley, the Head Teacher of Creative and Performing Arts, as well as the IT Co-ordinator for the school, gives more detail around the mural and its importance to the school community. “The new mural was designed by students to recognise important role models in Australia’s Indigenous culture,” he said.
Mr Kiley then explains the importance to the school, “It also stems from part of our Culture program, which teaches our students about our local Indigenous culture here in Deniliquin where we are teaching the local language to our Year 7 students, and we can perform the national Anthem singing in the local language.” He further states that the unveiling of the Mural last week was a way to recognise the Indigenous community from both a local and national perspective and to provide positive links between the school and our local indigenous community.
The unveiling event was held outdoors, and this caused its own problems for the school. Mr Kiley says that the choice to go outdoors was simply because of where the mural was. “That space is a common meeting space in our school,” he says, “and the mural is the first thing you see when you walk through the playground.” As Adam Goodes was the virtual guest and speaker, the challenge was how have a large audience able to see and hear him.
“We did try and organise some external options for an outdoor screen which fell through. I then decided that we would use two 86inch HDI screens linked together either side of the audience so we could see Adam.” Mr Kiley states. “As he was coming to us via a Microsoft Teams meeting, I had a MacBook Pro running the teams meeting, video output to the two linked HDI screens and audio output to the FOH (front of house) PA system,” he says.
The AV setup also included two cameras, a lectern microphone and the FOH PA running through a Blackmagic ATEM video controller to send video and audio back to Adam through the teams meeting. From a technical viewpoint, the whole setup worked well apart from a couple of times when Mr Kiley says the internet/WIFI signal let them down. Mr Kiley was happy with the HDi Screens used on the day.
“The HDI screens did great outdoors,” he says. “Considering the time of day and how much light there was (and some rain!), they provided a great picture for everybody to be able to see Adam on the screen. This was the first time we had attempted to do something like this outdoors, so all things considered it all worked very well!”
With the unveiling of the Mural deemed a success, Technology Core would like to commend the students and staff at Deniliquin High School for their positive approach to including Indigenous Culture into our communities and congratulate them on how well they have done to achieve this.
