“What we are seeing is a dramatic change in the ways our boys work. They can be far more creative because they have found powerful new ways to collaborate.”
Rob Sieben, Director of ICT, Prince Alfred College
Prince Alfred College is an independent boys school in South Australia with a progressive but discerning approach to new teaching technologies.
In 2010, technology staff decided to make more strategic use of mobile computing by providing teachers with Fujitsu tablet PCs so that they could work naturally and intuitively using a keyboard or stylus. They also provided students and staff with Microsoft® OneNote® 2010 and a Live@edu account which features email, collaboration tools and an individual Windows Live® SkyDrive® – 25GB of storage in the cloud.
Now staff can use OneNote 2010 to create digital notebooks of course content including notes, videos, links, sketches, images and more. They can save these to shared SkyDrive folders, so they and their students can instantly access any course content at home or school. Teachers are also able to access updates or files posted on the SkyDrive by students to quickly assess work or jot down comments and advice using a stylus. Learning has become more interactive, students are more creative, and staff and students collaborate more intuitively.
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“Students live in a world where they are immersed in mobile technology. If we can tap into their digital world then we have the best chance of engaging them.” |
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Rob Sieben
Director of ICT,
Prince Alfred College |
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Business Needs
Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, is one of South Australia’s premier independent boys schools. Founded by the Methodist Church in 1869, it is an accredited International Baccalaureate Diploma School with a reputation for academic excellence, and students frequently proceed to some of the world’s best-ranked universities.
The college’s educational philosophy combines traditional values with progressive thinking, a stance that encourages staff to critically examine new teaching techniques.
“We believe that technology will play an enormously important role in students’ lives,” says Rob Sieben, Director, ICT, Prince Alfred College. “However, we aren’t interested in gadgets just because they are new. We want to see what enables students to learn in the most effective way.”
In early 2010, Sieben and his colleagues visited primary and secondary schools to observe the different roles that technology plays in learning. One particular trend caught Sieben’s attention.
“Students live in a world where they are immersed in mobile technology,” says Sieben. “If we can tap into their digital world then we have the best chance of engaging them.”
Staff were also attracted to mobile technologies because traditional computer labs or classrooms represented an inefficient use of resources.
“Students and teachers often only want access to online material for a few minutes at a time during classes. It doesn’t make sense to occupy computer classrooms that are in high demand just for intermittent use, especially when that means denying another class the same level of access to computing resources.
“We thought that if we invested in mobile computing which teachers and students could use on-demand, we could do away with several computer suites and, at the same time, avoid the unnecessary costs associated with building new classrooms.”
Solution
During 2010, Prince Alfred College conducted a technology evaluation project at a cross-section of primary and secondary schools, focusing on learning outcomes. One particular combination impressed Sieben and his colleagues: the information-gathering application, Microsoft® OneNote® 2010 together with the complimentary email and file-sharing service, Microsoft® Live@edu.
With OneNote 2010, students have a freeform digital notebook, where they can insert and organise research and project work in a variety of formats: video, graphic, sound, music and text. Live@edu provides students and teachers with complimentary email accounts and 25 GB of online storage in a Windows Live® SkyDrive®.
Sieben observed that if teachers use OneNote to create curriculum content and then save the files online using SkyDrive, teachers and students have immediate access to course content, both inside and outside the classroom.
What’s more, if students use OneNote for project work and store it in the same way, then their colleagues and teachers have access to their project work, and the ability to contribute and comment at any time.
Impressed, Sieben and his colleagues wanted to go one step further. They experimented with Fujitsu tablet PCs, which physically resemble notebooks when the screen is rotated and folded down face-up on the keyboard.
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“Ultimately, the power of OneNote combined with the flexibility of a tablet PC will allow on-demand classroom access to the kinds of rich-media material that was previously confined to the computer rooms.” |
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Rob Sieben
Director of ICT,
Prince Alfred College |
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“The T730 Tablet PC is a touch-device, designed to respond to finger or stylus inputs,” says Adrian Mead, Fujitsu PC Australia. “This helps promote an intuitive, but still accurate, interface to software programs.”
By using the digital stylus on the Fujitsu tablet, teachers can hand-write comments and notes directly into files, including OneNote.
As part of its licensing agreement with Microsoft, Prince Alfred already had the right to provide OneNote to all its students. During 2010, the college deployed the application on all college computers, and at the same time provisioned email accounts for all students courtesy of Live@edu, which gave them access to SkyDrive file sharing and storage. In early 2011 the college issued tablet PCs to all teachers, and by the beginning of 2012 all boys in Years 7 to 11 will also have a tablet PC.
Benefits
By deploying mobile computing technologies that make digital course material instantly accessible, Prince Alfred College has stimulated more interactive teaching methods and greater student collaboration.
“The way we use OneNote with online storage operates much like a wiki, but with extra capabilities,” says Sieben. “Student and teacher notebooks are full of audio, visual and video files as well as hyperlinks. Ultimately, the power of OneNote combined with the flexibility of a tablet PC will allow on-demand classroom access to the kinds of rich-media material that was previously confined to the computer rooms.”
More creative collaboration
Students have found that OneNote provides an exceptionally fertile framework for developing project work.
“What this means is that students don’t need to access the school drive after hours, or carry their work around on thumb drives – which they often lose,” says Sieben. “They can save their work online using SkyDrive, then elect to share those files with teachers and with other students, so they can work on projects concurrently.”
According to teachers, this facility has profoundly affected the way that students work together.
“What we’ve seen with OneNote is that it enables and encourages collaboration,” says Sieben. “In fact, what we are seeing is a dramatic change in the ways our boys work. They are far more creative because they have powerful new ways to collaborate.”
More interactive learning
Because students’ work is produced in OneNote and stored on SkyDrive, it is always available for teachers to inspect.
“It’s like having every student workbook in front of me at all times,” says Peter Karamoshos, Head of Middle School, Prince Alfred College. “I can provide more relevant, powerful and timely feedback than ever before, because I can see what progress they are making every step of the way.”
Teachers also use Community Clips from Microsoft® Office Labs IT to intervene early, tagging comments or audio messages to a file to ensure a student’s ideas stay on track.
“If we see a piece of written work that isn’t quite right, we can make suggestions straight into the margins, and they can rework their assignment before they submit,” adds Karamoshos.
Improved teaching potential
Teachers have discovered that OneNote helps them collaborate too, which helps Prince Alfred College create the stimulating learning environment it strives for.
“I have teachers coming to me and presenting opportunities for students that we hadn’t considered” says Sieben. “Staff in the science faculty use OneNote to share curriculum material amongst themselves, so they can enrich each others’ courses.”
The use of OneNote and the rollout of tablet PCs to students is adding a new dimension to the learning experience.
“This combination of mobile computing technology and file-sharing software is giving them the opportunity to be more creative and more collaborative,” says Sieben. “Ultimately, that means they can enjoy far greater success in their education.”
Microsoft products that were featured
Microsoft® OneNote® 2010
With OneNote 2010 you can collect and organise everything you need – notes, photos, videos, and web links – for any project you are working on. OneNote keeps the information you need at your fingertips, and with powerful search capabilities you can easily find exactly what you are looking for and share with others.
Microsoft® Live@edu
Live@edu is a complimentary hosted service that provides each student, teacher and staff member with email, instant messaging, 25 GB of file storage, online workspaces, blogs, calendars, video chat and more. It's accessible online through popular Web browsers for Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux. What's more, it's available at no cost and administration is a snap.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services call the sales and information line on 13 20 58 Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm AEST. To find a partner or solution, visit www.microsoft.com/australia/findapartner
