Nassau, The Bahamas - St Andrew’s School, The
International School of The Bahamas, has introduced a pilot Digital
Literacy programme for Year 6 students by bringing 45 Chromebook laptops
and the ‘Google for Education’ suite of apps, books and videos to the
classroom.
The
software, which is free to schools, allows users to create, share and
edit files in real time, thus greatly increasing productivity as well as
interaction and collaboration between students and teachers. Each user
receives a Gmail account, and projects are automatically saved on a
Cloud for safety and easy access at any time from any computer, tablet
or phone.
Almost
a year in the testing stage, the programme was funded by the St
Andrew’s School PTA. Custom Computers Ltd., which supplied the
Chromebooks, also made a $5,000 donation to assist with its
introduction.
The
initiative is part of the school’s broader mission of providing a high
quality international education that prepares its students to thrive in a
changing world, said Principal/CEO Robert Stitch.
“Today,
IT is not a different, separate subject to be studied in a lab; it’s
much like literacy and numeracy, and our plan is to fully integrate it
into the school’s curriculum,” he said. “This programme will provide the
students with extensive, hands-on experience that is critical to
developing life skills and succeeding in the 21st Century.”
The soft trial currently underway will last through the end of the summer term and include a student showcase for parents on
May 5th.
In the meantime, Digital Literacy is already a big hit with both the children and staff.
“The
kids are really excited,” said Stacey Fuderer, one of the five teachers
currently on the platform. “They like the fact that everything is
accessible and organised, so when they save a document it’s all within
their drive; they don’t have to carry around a USB stick anymore.
Everything’s online; they can access their work at home as well as at
school. Also, the students are really excited about sharing their work
with each other, so that they can get feedback from their peers as well
as from me.”
Said Year 6 student
Alexandro Casu: “It’s actually easier for you because when you go on
Gmail, there’s this little square where you can see all the documents.
You can always create one, and you can name it, so it’s easy for you to
find them.”
The children will
keep their Gmail accounts throughout their career at the school. Since
their portfolios are saved on a Cloud, they will be able to refer to all
of the work they have done in previous years until they graduate.
The school chose Google for Education not only because it offers a
quality suite of products free of charge, but also because the
Chromebooks needed to participate are relatively inexpensive, said Chad
Strachan, Director of Management Information Systems at St Andrew’s. He
added that the school expects to move to a ‘BYOD’ — Bring Your Own
Device’ — model as the programme expands, and therefore the
affordability of these devices to parents is important.
In the long term, another advantage of this programme is that it
eliminates the need for students to keep printing out drafts of their
work, since teachers can comment and edit online. This will greatly
assist in the school’s mission to ‘be green’, Mr. Strachan added.
“We’re
actually a certified Eco-School, so there are standards that we need to
keep up with, and this is a big push forward; with this we’ll be able
to save a lot of paper,” he said.
It is expected that the integration of Google for Education at St
Andrew’s will gradually expand to other grades, and eventually include
the whole school.
“Moving
forward it only can get better, because you can integrate not only
laptops but tablets,” said Mr. Strachan. “In the meantime, the teachers
are also continuing to learn about all of the possibilities presented by
this platform, and they find it fun and interesting.”
