/ 3 August 2010

Taking technology to school

St Cyprian's School in Cape Town is embracing technology in a way that has made it eagerly adopted by learners.

Under the guidance of headmistress Sue Redelinghuys, St Cyprian’s School in Cape Town is embracing technology in a way that has made it eagerly adopted by learners, staff and parents. This ranges from making teachers and administrators less reliant on paper-based systems to improving communication between staff and learners.

Nina Adams, the information technology (IT) manager at St Cyprian’s, says the key to the success of the school’s approach has been to put the learners, rather than technology, at the centre of everything they do.

“The goal of our IT efforts is to give the teachers the tools they need to deliver 21st-century teaching and to give the students of the three St Cyprian’s schools — pre-school, primary and high school — access to learning resources from anywhere,” says Adams.

All of this has had to be achieved within a tight budget. At the heart of St Cyprian’s efforts is a Microsoft technology called Sharepoint Server, which is a single platform that ties together many different systems and forms the base of a web-based portal that can be used by teachers, parents and learners.

Learners can view stored documents, school announcements, library resources, administrative forms and a calendar of events. They can also access class material online and blog about what they are learning during their travels and community outreach programmes.

The ability to pose questions and interact online has brought a strong social media element into the equation and it is having the effect of getting many of the girls interested and involved.

“The social computing aspect will be a very important focus once we upgrade to SharePoint 2010 later in the year,” said Adams.

“New features will include a Facebook-type profile page where you can upload a photo, add your interests, add a colleague, follow people posting useful content, and so on. Since most girls use Facebook every day, this combination of work and play will hopefully encourage them to make even more use of the portal.”

Teachers can use the portal to update teaching resources, view their calendars and class lists and maintain their own forms. Many teachers use PowerPoint in their lessons but previously could not access these materials when they were not at school, making lesson preparation difficult. The portal allows them to store and access their teaching materials, including video clips and websites, from any location.

When the parent portal goes live later this year, parents and learners will be able to view a learner’s home page. A learner’s overall progress will be tracked easily on a summary page and learners and parents will be able to view detailed reports on attendance, schedules and academic progress.

All pupils in grades one to six are taught basic computer literacy — how to use word processors and spreadsheets — and how to link this to what they do in the classroom. From grade seven to grade nine, the learners do the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) qualification, which gives them powerful technology skills that will stand them in good stead not only in school, but also beyond.

The learners of St Cyprian’s are constantly challenged to use technology in their work. When they do projects, for example, they are encouraged to supplement written presentations with video clips where appropriate and to upload all their projects and make them available online for others to see.

“The moment students start learning from each other, that’s when real learning takes place,” says Adams.

To create a lively technology platform the school considered several options, including free and open-source software options used widely in schools. One of the constraints was usability — if the solution was to encourage information-sharing between learners and teachers, it had to be widely and easily accessible.

“Open-source systems are not as cheap as they pretend to be,” says Adams. “Schools use them thinking that they’re taking the cheaper option but, when you look at the broader costs of integrating and maintaining systems, they often end up costing more and being harder to use.”

Angela Schaerer, the academic programmes manager at Microsoft South Africa, says the school’s technology platform is opening up the potential for innovation in teaching methods.

“Teachers can now start to look creatively at a variety of uses for the intranet they may never have considered before — it has the potential to change the way subjects are taught in the classroom. They can use the intranet to include new technologies, the use of which could form part of the curriculum in future classes,” she says.

This copy was supplied by Microsoft