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StAC’s Microsoft expert educators
Teachers Jacqueline Yoder and Ben
Hilliam were named as two of only
nine Microsoft Expert Educators
from New Zealand. Ben and
Jacqueline recently visited Microsoft
headquarters in Sydney were they
worked with other like-minded
teachers to build a global network
around developing technology
innovation in modern learning
environments.
Embracing
“So how many of you have seen your
accuracy and typing speed increase?”
Director of ICT, Sam McNeill, asks his
Year 9 tutor group. Without hesitation,
every hand shoots up. This Year 9 cohort
is the first group where every student
is required to have an internet-capable
device such as a laptop.
Reflecting on this year of 1:1
Computing, Sam McNeill says he’s
pleased with what has been achieved.
“At the beginning of the year the
devices were a bit of a novelty. Now
they are just considered a tool, like
your pencil case, and no longer the
focus of the classroom.”
For the students there have been lots
of benefits to having a device instead of
a schoolbag of books. “It’s a lot harder
to lose your laptop, or leave it behind
somewhere,” says Tom Marshall.
Amelia Sharpe agrees, “It’s a lot easier
than carrying around books. Everything
is in one place.”
For most, if not all of the Year 9s, having
a device was almost second nature.
They have all used computers since
Preparatory School, even if it was just
at home, and were familiar with using
the internet, and educational software
programmes.
“It’s easy when you need to research
something,” says Gareth Barron. “You
have the internet right there. You don’t
have to get books.”
Sam says while there was a big change
in the look and feel of those Year 9
classrooms now that every student has
a device, in many respects it has been
a natural progression for teachers who
are already using a wide range of ICT
tools in their planning and teaching.
“There has been an adjustment for
many of our teachers to balance what
they feel the expectations are for use,
for instance when do you use the device
and when is it shut.” Sam says teachers
are encouraged to make use of a traffic
light poster in the classrooms, which
indicates when students can have free,
unrestricted use, require permission to
use or they need to be turned off. This
is part of teaching Digital Citizenship to
the students.
technology
Some teachers have also found
technology allows them more teaching
time. It’s called ‘flipping the classroom’,
where many of the mundane how-to-
skills are given to students to complete
outside the classroom so that they
come to class ready to focus. Students
are given resources to learn things for
themselves, while valuable teaching
time is spent on deeper thinking and
developing critical thinking skills.
Although they are all computer literate,
there’s no fear just yet of students
forgetting how to write. They still need
writing skills for exams. “We promote
a blended approach,” says Sam. “In
preparation for exams they practise
handwriting assessments so they know
how many words a minute they write.
Although, NCEA is moving towards
having exams online.”
When it decided in 2012 to introduce
1:1 Computing in the 2014 Year 9
cohort, the College made a significant
investment in its network system. “We
now have 167 wireless access points
around the campus,” says Sam.
Sam says the College is also investing
in a secondary diverse fibre into the
school. “If something happens, such as
road workers digging up our primary
cable, we will be able to carry on
functioning. Our strategy has been
to identify and eliminate any single
points of failure so that our business
operations and teaching environment
won’t be impacted.”
With increasing numbers of students
using devices at the College, predictably
Sam has seen the volume of data grow.
“Over the last 24 hours we have used
just under a terabyte, of data, which
is pretty consistent with our daily
average. During that period it peaked
at 150Mb/s, but it averages at about
80Mb/s.”
That’s a lot of data, which in light of
media stories about hacking, bullying,
Year 9 students Judith Jewell, Jack Morrow
and Finn van Dorsser using devices in class.