Canterbury College | Empowering Students to be World Ready

The seamless integration of technology at Canterbury College

At Canterbury College in Logan, Waterford in Queensland, technology has been so deeply integrated into the curriculum and administration work, that it’s become seamless.

James Jenkins, Head of AI and Digital Transformation at Canterbury College and a Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Fellow, puts it this way: “If the right technology is chosen and is working well, you don’t notice it. If students can just get on with things… finding information, collaborating, creating with AI… then we shouldn’t be focused on the technology, we should be focused on the learning. These days we don’t say, ‘now we’re going to do this collaborative activity’, because it’s just how we work.”

Afzal Shariff, Director of IT Services, whose department partners with Mr Jenkins to work closely with academic staff, sums it up like this: “Secure online collaboration is part of daily college life these days, whether inside or outside the classroom. It’s ingrained in our college community. It makes our life easier on a daily basis.”

It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago, the college had a challenging BYOD model. With a commitment to improving the digital learning experience and a plan focused on fast forwarding AI innovation into the classroom today, the move was made to a 1:1 school managed device program.

In making the choice of “which device?”, the college looked to Microsoft and Surface. The decision frame centred on security, exceptional performance with extended battery life, design and portability, digital inking, laptop to tablet modality, and seamless integration with Microsoft digital learning staples like OneNote, Teams and SharePoint and the new wave of AI learning innovation with Copilot.

Positive signals from students and teachers

“Surface was the hands down favourite among staff and student representatives who tested a variety of devices,” recalls Mr Shariff, “as with any devices, we sometimes have issues, but overall, our Surface devices including the new Surface Copilot+ PCs with Qualcomm Arm are the best fit for our purposes and we’re really happy with them. The students love the lighter design and long battery life of the new model.”

This type of feedback was facilitated directly from students with positive themes covering longer battery life, faster loading, more and better storage capacity, and useful keyboard features with Copilot.

The positive experience with Surface devices has seen Canterbury College adopt a very different device landscape from five years ago. Today, they have provisioned 1800 Surface devices with a mix of Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, including 450 new Copilot+ PC models with Qualcomm Arm. These devices sit within a campus wide wireless network on 69 hectares. The rollout of the Surface devices took steady steps, starting with a couple of year groups and growing to the entire college. The next phase has been upgrading Years 4, 7 and 10 to the new AI-enhanced Copilot+ PC models to maintain the three-year cyclic lease program.

The college is recognised as a Microsoft Showcase and Surface Lighthouse school and was also recognised as an Excellence Awardee in the 2024 and 2025 Australian Education Awards for best use of technology. These endorsements reflect the college’s commitment to integrated technology that powers outstanding AI-enhanced digital learning pedagogy and outcomes for students.

Taking steps into a new era of education with AI and Copilot

Canterbury pulled up a seat at the AI table fast knowing that it will be a far-reaching change agent in shaping modern education. Seeing the value of Microsoft Copilot as one of the most exciting and accessible AI applications on the market, the college began with Microsoft Copilot for the web, building its own personal digital assistants trained on the college’s syllabus and resources. Now, as one of the first schools to introduce the Surface Copilot+ PC category, there’s a deep focus on understanding how to use it ethically and safely. A key principle is that it is an enabler, not a substitute for learning.

“Once students have learned how to do something, it’s ok for them to offload some of that cognitive process to Copilot. This lets them build on the next thing so it’s still about their own skill development,” says Mr Jenkins.

Mr Shariff explains the opportunities and challenges of AI in an educational setting: “We’re aware AI is here to stay, and we’re not looking back. The Surface Copilot+ PC devices are more intuitive, adapting to users’ habits, allowing for greater efficiency through a better, personalised learning experience. For instance, students can now produce more constructive and meaningful research for their assessments.”

Canterbury intends to roll out Surface Copilot+ PCs to all staff and students over time. In the classroom, students are already quickly adopting efficient, collaborative ways to co-create assessment tasks using Copilot, while teachers are saving time and effort using it to create high-quality, creative educational materials like quizzes and lesson plans. Canterbury’s professional services staff can now streamline a wide range of tasks including drafting documents, summarising emails, generating presentations and analysing data, which frees up time to focus on strategic work. For IT, zero-touch deployment like Windows Autopilot and Microsoft Intune simplifies device management across the network, increasing efficiency, reducing manual tasks, and improving operational oversight.

“We’re finding it’s a win-win for everyone to have AI-enhanced devices. They’re adding value across the board,” says Mr Shariff.

Leading with security

“Device security is critical in a school when dealing with young and inquisitive minds and we found the Surface device with Microsoft 365 best suited our needs, both in terms of security and the remote cloud-based app deployment, updates and policy enforcement offered by Intune,” says Mr Shariff.

Behind the scenes, dedicated IT services and support keep the wheels turning so technology is safely and effectively integrated. Mr Shariff stresses the importance of protecting stakeholders while minimising disruption: “We aim to create a seamless integration, to remove the tech part of the technology to make it easy to use. At the same time, we ensure proper cyber safety and security systems are in place to safeguard the wellbeing of our students and staff. Now with AI, we’re also mindful of the privacy risks and are proactively developing governance frameworks to create guardrails so it’s used responsibly and securely.”

It helps that issues are quickly resolved thanks to the direct support line with the Microsoft team and Data#3, and an on-the-spot device swap to ensure students don’t experience disruption to their studies.

There’s also a constant balance to be struck between IT support as an education enabler on the one hand, and a protective security barrier on the other. Mr Shariff believes this relies on building strong relationships between IT and the digital learning team, and extending right through to the administration, teachers, students and parents.

What does seamless AI-enhanced digital learning look like?

Walk into a classroom with a lesson in progress and the space will be a hive of collaborative activity. Teachers might begin by actively engaging students in sharing ideas and feedback, co-creating on a topic using Whiteboard and OneNote. Students might be digitally inking comments in tablet mode, writing questions, and adding images, symbols and notes in real-time, as they build on each other’s ideas. The teacher can then weave that student input into the new lesson material.

Mr Jenkins shares his perspective on how AI-enhanced digital learning pedagogy has unlocked greater autonomous learning: “Tools like Copilot and OneNote have changed the way people work. Students can now use technology, often intuitively, to enhance their learning experience, rather than waiting for a teacher’s instructions. We’re creating learners that are aware of how they learn and are independent in that process. Technology has a big part to play here.”

Creativity is key. Students are intuitively combining the Surface Pen, camera and in-built microphone to produce multimedia-rich content for assessments. Particularly in subjects like Film and TV, History, English and Physical Education. QR codes are also regularly used in schoolwork projects and Clipchamp effects in the recent Ramsey House themed video competition.

Continual investment in upskilling of teachers ensures they’re equipped to deliver the high-quality digital learning experience the college now exemplifies. All new staff are brought up to speed on the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices and the Microsoft 365 for Education platform.

There’s also a strong culture of peer learning, as Mr Shariff explains: “Teachers are increasingly adapting to AI tools and growing together through shared knowledge.”

Preparing students to be ‘World Ready’

Seamless AI-enhanced digital learning is made possible equally by technology and culture. At Canterbury, the next wave of innovation looks like a “better together” approach across the latest Surface Copilot+ PC devices, the suite of Microsoft 365 collaboration and productivity tools, and the school’s education tools. This approach is designed with the college’s Vision in mind: “To nurture and inspire confident, optimistic and compassionate young people who are World Ready.”

For Mr Jenkins, preparing students for a future beyond the college campus means building their confidence and adaptability. This seems like a good strategy given the rapid evolution of AI alone will shape their future careers. According to the 2025 Annual Work Trend Index, 78% of leaders are already considering hiring for new AI roles. He puts it this way: “The world we live in is constantly changing, and at a faster pace, AI being a perfect example. Part of the ‘World Ready’ mantra is to prepare our students not to fear that change. We understand that academic skills are important, but so are a lot of others around creativity and collaboration. We want them to leave here with useful skills for the future.”

Canterbury College’s approach to seamlessly integrate AI-enhanced technology demonstrates that a Vision for the future can deliver real outcomes for students and teachers, today.

Want to learn more?

Canterbury College 1:1 Technology
Microsoft Surface for Education
Microsoft 365 for Education