We asked local independent schools to talk about how they incorporate digital technology in a meaningful way into their curriculum. These are their answers.
Alcuin College
Each student has unique gifts and talents that need to be uncovered and cultivated for a life that is full.
In order to achieve such levels of personalization, technology is fundamental to how we learn at Alcuin College.
From as early as Grade 3, Alcuin students develop their individual skills through digital technology in blogging, programming and using mobile and desktop applications. Hands-on learning is enhanced through the use of devices such as an Activtable, which promotes collaborative problem solving. Up to six students can work together to explore different curricular concepts.
The session can be saved for teacher review, feedback, and further investigation.
Students in Grade 7 and up are encouraged to utilize the device and platform of their preference in purposeful ways. They are educated in digital writing, editing and posting on the school’s webpage.
Each and every one of these students publishes online and develops their skills in micro-blogging through their use of Twitter. They are encouraged to follow meaningful discussions on their Twitter feeds and podcasts. The teacher models online etiquette and responsible use.
Our students are required to use the technology resources in a caring and responsible manner, in accordance with the school’s values. We have found that digital technology supports differentiated instruction and personalization in learning very well.
Mulgrave
Floor-to-ceiling windows span two sides of the classroom and there are no built-in cabinets or bookshelves — not your typical classroom.
This was the Mulgrave Junior School computer lab not so long ago. If you were to peek through one of those windows now, you would see a room filled with smiling second graders who might be working in small groups on a Keynote presentation or practising Mandarin characters on their iPads. Three years ago, a team of Grade 3 teachers piloted a 1:1 iPad program for their students, and it was a huge success.
Subsequently, it was decided that all students should have access to a tablet, thus making the computer lab unnecessary. Today, all students in grades 2-6 have their own iPads, which they use on a regular basis as a tool for research, practice and presentation.
Integrated technology allows Mulgrave teachers to personalize their students’ learning, and having the iPad as a tool makes it easier to provide students with a means for expressing their understanding of a given topic.
Applications such as Pages and iMovie allow students to synthesize what they know through a few key phrases and evocative images or through student-created videos that showcase their understanding.
Teachers are able to guide their classes through the research throughout their daily routines, instead of having to wait for their allotted computer lab block. They can instantly give feedback to students about reliable sources and can guide them to websites appropriate to each student’s reading level.
With this kind of power comes great responsibility. Mulgrave has, therefore, embedded digital literacy lessons into daily routines. Additionally, workshops for both parents and students are held regularly so that the entire community feels supported as we all develop our fluency in these necessary 21st century skills.
Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School
For the past 40 years, Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School has been providing programs and resources for students on the North Shore and beyond who are challenged by learning differences.
This fall, the doors opened on the new KGMS secondary option, Maplewood Alternative High School.
Maplewood offers an alternative high school program for students with learning differences and specific learning challenges that combines academics, social interaction, work experience, personal advocacy and life skills.
The program is based on a combination of academic options; individualized and small group instruction; job shadowing and co-operative education placements; and specialized skills-based electives such as music, computer programming, culinary arts, woodworking, photography and movie making.
Digital technology plays a key role in the development of individualized programming for students.
Each learner is provided with access to a dedicated laptop and iPad and all teaching areas are equipped with SmartBoards and printers.
The transfer of teaching and learning between school and home is seamless, as student work and online discussions are facilitated through shared access to Google Drive and Google Docs, and students are encouraged to upload work to the cloud and collaborate with their teachers and their peers as they develop their thinking towards a final product.
In addition, the school keeps in touch with parents through online blogging, tweets, two websites and a school Facebook page that is updated daily.
At Maplewood, access to a wide variety of digital tools and resources supports a program that is personal and effective for all learners.
Brockton School
At Brockton School, an overarching goal is to develop good digital citizenship.
Successful, technologically fluent digital citizens live safety and civilly in an increasingly digital world.
Technology is used in all grades at Brockton School as a tool to support and extend learning, giving us opportunities to explore in ways and directions that cannot otherwise be reached: using diverse programs and applications, engaging collaboration from all corners of the globe, and finding new ways to be inquisitive in our learning.
In the Junior School (K to 6) MacBook’s and iPads are used extensively, and in the Senior School (grades 7 to 12) students are required to bring a laptop (BYOL). Among the systems at Brockton, Google Apps for Education is used extensively.
Each student from grades 4 to 12 is given a school email account and is able to incorporate a range of useful apps to help them stay organized, develop time-management skills, and effectively collaborate on group assignments and research projects. Students are encouraged to use these apps every day as a means of communicating with teachers and peers.
In addition to these integrated aspects of digital citizenship and the use of technology to support teaching and learning, Brockton offers some technology-specific courses such as
Design Technology that teach topics of web design, game design, robotics, animation, graphic design, video production, digital photography, architectural design, and more.
As a relatively young and small school, Brockton has the nimble nature to embrace the ever-dynamic world of technology in a way that supports (yet does not direct) the best in learning.
Brentwood College School
Technology skills are nurtured both implicitly and explicitly at Brentwood.
In our Foundation 9 year, a course has been developed to integrate tech skills into a curriculum that has global issues as its core content. A range of presentation skills are introduced including planning elements and public speaking tips as well as introducing software, cultivating the broader academic and life skill of effective communication.
In a similar vein, research skills are broader than search skills and require critical thinking about the veracity and reliability of information available on the web.
In Grade 10, for example, there is an integrated approach in the core subjects, such as mathematics, where students might record the motion of a falling object and then use software to analyze its acceleration.
Students are able to explore the waterfront campus in biology and chemistry classes using handheld data probes that take readings of environmental factors such as light, CO2 levels and seawater conditions.
Partnering with Ocean Networks Canada and UVic’s department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the school is a location for an underwater-monitoring station that streams images and data in real-time that students then analyze in class. Being able to interpret data, find correlations, investigate patterns and make predictions becomes far more relevant when the source is one’s own backyard.
Specialist courses are available such as software engineering where students creatively design their own game engines, and robotics where students build collaboration and problem-solving skills as well as robots.
Whatever the course, teachers endeavour to engage students with technology, to leverage learning opportunities and help them develop the tools they will inevitably need in an increasingly digital world.
The faculty works to supply and optimize the students’ toolkit of skills used to develop digital literacies and the confidence required to succeed in a technology-rich environment.
Island Pacific School
Digital citizenship, digital legacy and digital literacy.
These three competencies are the foundation of the digital technology program at Island Pacific School.
It is designed to reflect, and get ahead of, how information exchange in the world is evolving socially, in education, in the workplace, and in the way data is stored. The world is going online in ways we are not even aware of and students need to be digitally agile to respond to the future.
Technology teacher Christian MacInnis helps students understand that digital citizenship “is a package of skills that mirror how we define normal citizenship: like being an active player and a positive contributor to a community. By its nature the Internet is a new space for true democracy. We have had critical thinking tools for hundreds of years, now we are applying them to a digital model; we are teaching critical thinking skills within a digital learning space.”
A positive digital legacy, the impression and footprint you leave online, is consistently emphasized throughout the curriculum.
Digital literacy begins with the ability to use hardware in combination with a deliberate use of useful software.
All students and staff use Google Apps for Education and they effectively act as the school’s “digital backbone” for the majority of the school pedagogy. Students produce YouTube tutorials and learn through teaching.
All IPS students maintain an E-portfolio that is a platform to showcase their best work to parents and other students.
They publish the portfolio, connect with others and exchange feedback. Managing e-portfolios provides important self-awareness and online competencies needed to navigate the workplace and higher academics.
Teachers are using new tools for assignment distribution and tracking; data collection; and regular correspondence through email. As an island school, we rely on technology to help deliver quality feedback to families on the mainland.
Half of our parents elect to conference with faculty online. Parents get news and information about IPS via social media and regular e-newsletters.
Lions Gate Christian School
The story of Lions Gate Christian Academy over the past 10 months has been akin to The Little Engine That Could.
If you recall the children’s book, the Little Engine never gave up and successfully delivered circus animals to town although the task seemed herculean. At the close of the school year last June, the LGCA community faced the task of moving the entire school. Not just the desks and chairs, but entire buildings. An impossible task in a few short months?
Yes, but we never gave up and successfully started this school year in our new location at 919 Tollcross Rd. We would like to thank the neighborhood for their patience during a hot, dusty, noisy summer as the site was being prepared to reopen again as a school.
What does this have to do with technology? This story sounds more like bricks and asphalt.
Technology played an important role as our school community watched on our new website (lgca.ca) and Facebook sites, week by week, as building improvements were made. We celebrated, electronically, with each new posting. Photos posted on social media sites of LGCA staff moving furniture and cleaning the gym floor during Call-in-Week in late August encouraged parents and students that we would be ready for school in September.
An added measure of respect and participation in parent work weekends added to the strength of our school community.September came and so did the students.
Our new website offers grade-level blogs that review the week and look to the events ahead. Newsletters are posted on the website. Parents seem to enjoy and appreciate this new form of communication. Curricularly, we continue to use a variety of technologies as tools and resources as means to an end: student learning.
We welcome you to visit our school virtually on our website or in person.
Hard hats, vests and boots are no longer required.
Bodwell High School
Bodwell High School has espoused a 1:1 philosophy with technology.
That means every student brings a laptop to every class, and is digitally connected to the world in order to communicate, collaborate, be creative, and think critically. Teachers and students engage in utilizing digital tools as a support system for innovative teaching and learning.
At Bodwell, we believe that technology can be freeing: teachers and students are able to try new things, learn at all times (including evenings and weekends) and collaboratively engage online because we are no longer bound by bells.
This allows students to individualize their studies and teaches them inquiry skills that will benefit them in the real world. This also helps students make a connection between concepts they learn in courses and how those concepts apply in the real world.
With the help of a dedicated IT department who keeps our technology running smoothly, we are better able to be more cutting edge in our teaching and learning.
We think of our use of technology as turning curiosity into a science. Students need to know how to use technology to survive and thrive in the future, and we aim to help them hone these skills.
St. Edmund's School
The most vital component of digital education is digital citizenship, and our students are taught to treat technology, especially social media, in a manner that maintains St. Edmund’s strong values of safety, respect for self, and responsibility as members of school, local, and global communities.
Digital technology has become an integral extension of the classroom in our upper intermediate grades. Shared class websites have become a useful tool for collaboration in applying 21st century skills.
The Grade 7 Dragon’s Den Marketing Unit enables students to research data, conduct business forecasts, create print and video ads and post product information. Students also create cooking videos, recipes, and dining room designs in preparation for our live cooking event similar to Iron Chef.
Online journaling is a regular component of the language arts program in the upper grades, as students design, maintain and update their own blogs, with a focus on spiritual reflection and community-building thinking.
The Novel Writers’ Club uses digital technology to enhance publishing skills through sites such as Amazon, in addition to allowing students the opportunity to view supportive feedback from their peers and teachers.
Our primary grades have the opportunity to use our classroom set of iPads on a weekly basis.
They use a variety of apps that practise letter recognition, phonetic awareness, hand-eye co-ordination, math facts, listening and reading skills, and reading comprehension.
Students are also introduced to responsibly using this technology to research facts and information about various topics being studied in class.
Technology has provided our students with opportunities to collaborate and express their understanding and creativity through several project-based activities.
Technology has enhanced learning that is relevant and assessment that is authentic. We believe that tech tools can extend learning in powerful ways by increasing engagement and differentiating instructional strategies to meet student needs.
CEFA
CEFA Early Learning is known for its innovative approach to Early Childhood Education, which depends heavily on games that are designed by our CEFA certified teachers that reflect the individuality of both the child and the teacher.
The games are designed around a specific child’s educational needs, and matched with that specific child’s interests, to create a unique new CEFA game the responds exactly to that child’s learning interests, achieving our overall educational goals.
Meanwhile, the teacher uses their unique gifts and talents to express the educational goals in a creative way based on the materials and resources available to them. The CEFA philosophy does not force the teacher to use ready-made materials.
This means that our CEFA enriched curriculum is constantly being updated and changed as teachers in any of our 14 schools across the Lower Mainland continue creating new material. All of these games are housed on a central server we use called CEFA Central.
All of our teachers between all our schools have access to CEFA Central and can browse the many games that other teachers have developed. They’re categorized based on the learning outcomes such as games to teach certain letters or games to build gross motor skills for instance. These games can inspire a teacher looking for ideas on how to present common learning objectives.
While CEFA Central does house a large volume of downloadable resources that teachers can print and use, its strength comes from the community of users that motivate each other to come up with new ideas of fun and engaging activities used to teach our students.
As new CEFA Early Learning schools continue to open from Caufeild to Surrey, Langley, Kelowna and eventually across Canada, CEFA Central will remain an essential resource for CEFA certified teachers to connect, motivate and inspire one another.
Collingwood School
Collingwood School students in Michal Hodal’s Data Science 12 file into the science lecture theatre and open their laptops.
On a large TV screen, Hodal shows his students a CT scan and a topography map all created with Python, a programming language utilized by Google, Facebook and NASA. Hodal’s students are learning the coding language to chart, graph and manipulate raw data of their own.
The course grew out of Collingwood’s coding club and encourages students to think critically about how data is presented. The students analyze and interpret publicly available data and create a research question. This fundamental skill leads students to develop a major research project, conduct the research and present their findings, Hodal said.
“Mike’s course is allowing (the students) to play with data,” said Stephen Garland, dean of Instructional Growth and Faculty. “They’re doing real research. They’re already ahead of the game and they don’t even know it.”
With an increasing number of university programs requiring a competency in a coding language, choosing Python, an open-source introductory language, was a natural starting point.
It’s also a versatile language used in web development, robotics and data analysis.
“The cool thing is it’s up to the students what they want to analyze,” said Hodal. “I’m giving them a very powerful tool they can use whether they go into science or engineering.”
Collingwood’s newly constructed Morven Campus is an ideal setting for the course with large smart TV displays in every classroom.
The curriculum immerses students in new technology to prepare them for success in a global economy requiring advanced programming and data analysis.
“I think a lot of people don’t know how useful this could be for them. Programming teaches logic,” said Hodal.
Rica Jin, a Grade 12 student who aims to study medicine next year, started the course without any programming knowledge.
“Now I know how to read code and graph. I’m hoping this will help with presentations at university,” she said. “I want to look at diseases, their past development and the technology that helped cure them.”
These submissions were part of the Independent Schools special section that runs twice a year in the North Shore News.
