Information Technology Update – November 29, 2018

ICT at St Patrick’s in 2019

The St Patrick’s College vision for eLearning is to provide technology-enriched learning opportunities that enable students to achieve high-quality learning outcomes, preparing them for further education, and training and to live and work in a digital world and 2019 will see the continuation of the 1:1 program across all year levels at the College.

– iPads will continue to be the 1:1 device for Years 7, 8 and 9. The iPads will be a parent owned device and can be sourced from a vendor of the parent’s choice. iPads continue to be an effective device at the Junior and Middle school year levels as they are compact, have a long battery life, have an immediate start and are easy to use. The iPads work particularly well with a number of the applications and resources the College utilises including SIMON, Google Classroom, Education Perfect, App4 eDiary, Squizya, Stile, Quizlet and the Campion text book app. All Year 7 students and new Year 8 and 9 students will attend an iPad Boot Camp at the start of the school year which will teach the students to set up the iPads correctly for the College network. As well, students will learn how to use the iPad effectively and will cover other topics including cyber safety and ergonomics. The iPad Boot Camp lasts the whole school day and it is envisioned that most students will leave with their iPad fully setup. Any students experiencing any difficulties will be able to go to the ICT Hub for support.

When the boys move in to Senior School, they will use a laptop as their 1:1 device for Years 10, 11 and 12. The College’s current laptop of choice is the HP Elitebook. This laptop has many features including:

• Includes the latest Version of Windows 10

• Highly reliable and superfast Solid State Hard Drive

• The Elitebook is physically small, making it convenient to carry from class to class and to school each day. It is easy to fit inside a school bag when travelling to and from home.

• Light weight: 1.28 kg

• Comes with a 7th Generation Intel-® Core-„¢ i5 Processor

• Long battery life will easily meet the demands of the school day

• Comes with a protective bag which incorporates an internal hard shell and foam padding to protect the machines when being carried.

• The lease cost includes a three-year manufacturer’s warranty.

• Most repairs are carried out at St Patrick’s by our technicians and are normally completed within 24 hours, often on the same day (depending on part availability).

• Offers the benefits of flexible 360 degree hinge movement

• Full-size island style keyboard with Dura-coat

• Touchscreen, Multitouch enabled and Active Stylus writing support

The Senior School laptop works particularly well with the College Microsoft Office 365 suite, which allows the students to install the Microsoft software applications on to their laptop. All Year 10 students will be allocated their new laptop at the Bootcamp on the first day of 2019. Here, students will learn more about the device and the College expectations about device use will also be reviewed. Students will receive their device package and they will set up and configure their device. Their device will be preconfigured with Windows 10 and Office 365 and connection to the school network will be established with devices ready for immediate use. As always, if any student has any questions about their device they can seek support from the IT Hub where their questions will be answered.

The College ICT Executive- Committee continues to review the use of ICT in the classroom and 2019 will see the finalisation of the updated eLearning Strategic Plan. The eLearning Strategic Plan seeks to find the best technology solutions and processes to best support our students and staff in teaching and learning. The committee has been gathering information on effective 21^st Century technologies from a variety of academic sources and papers to help understand the vision of what the effective use of ICT in supporting teaching and learning in the classroom explicitly looks like.

Mr Mark Holland

Director of ICT