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About St Paul's Catholic College St Paul's is a thriving Catholic college for young men that is performing very strong academically, providing outstanding care for the wellbeing of all and is a place where students interests, qualities, and skills are welcomed, and their hopes and wishes are fostered. |
The Problem
In 2019, St Paul's Catholic College in Manly decided that some aging classroom projectors were due for an upgrade. While projection was an initial priority, it was hard for the team at St Paul's to ignore the growing presence of interactive display solutions. Projection offered a cost effective solution for classrooms, but did not provide the interactive learning elements that drive problem solving and exploration in students.
St Paul's goal was to enable kids to utilise a broad wealth of information during the learning process, to encourage student-to-student collaboration and drive student engagement with new material and holistic interactive class structures.
"As educators we're trying to find something that gives us on opportunity for students to take autonomy of their own learning. To be inquisitive, to problem solve, to work collaboratively. We wont them to explore and to take risks."
St Paul's reached out to Viewsonic, requesting an outline of the capabilities of the interactive display. Thus, the ViewBoard pilot was born. First, St Paul's put a 75" Viewsonic ViewBoard in the school library. 4 weeks later, the Viewsonic team asked teachers: did anything change for you? Teachers reported profound change.
"When they see it for the first time, they say ·wow look at this· They're excited with the physicality of a big screen. It's quite impressive. As for as the hardware, everything is superb. I can't think of anything that I can find a fault with. It's absolutely simple, and it has become second nature to the students."
The Solution
Introducing the ViewBoard into a commonly frequented public space allowed the teachers of St Paul's to touch and try, and provided opportunities to engage students with the new technology to aid their lessons.
"Every student has been engaged with it. They've ployed in groups, problem solved, hod discussions. It is a tool for the students to explore, to engage with their learning and active problem solving."
Viewsonic provided professional development training, covering the myViewBoard digital whiteboarding platform, integration with cloud storage and usage of the unique in-canvas browser for the teaching staff.
"When it come to whiteboarding, myViewBoard allowed students and teachers to bring things in from the internet into the canvas, building canvases on the fly."
St Paul's then encouraged students to actively explore the ViewBoard during recess and lunch breaks, discovering that the students utilised the tools to show-and-tell and educate each other.
"The ViewBoard gives students autonomy over their learning, what we call agency, and there is a desire to ploy with the device and explore it further. We intend to create areas where students feel comfortable to use it and introduce it as an open tool for their learning and exploration."
The Result
Over the pilot period, the St Paul's IT team has had nothing but positive feedback from the teaching staff and students. The ability to expand their teaching methods is a common theme, quickly utilising information to answer questions and enhance lessons; annotating directly over content and presenting in exciting new ways. Other consistent accolades include the sharp, detailed images and the ability to easily see the screen without having to turn the lights off.
"It's provided a platform for everything the next generation needs in the work force. Employers wont to employ people that explore different avenues, that's why in my opinion we should have it in every school. That's why this solution works. It also doubles as a tool for teachers to teach with, outweighing data projectors 100 fold. High quality, interactive images allow for active discussion and discovery from teacher to students."
The teachers at St Paul's are encouraging students to take ownership and use ViewBoard's as their own learning tool, beyond traditional rate learning, aiming to enable students to teach their peers and discover points of interest autonomously.
"We want to discover what we can do beyond our interactive textbooks and projectors. This is a journey for us, our teachers and students are on that journey together. The ViewBoard will break down the barriers between students as being a student and being a teacher for other students. Moving forward, we're looking forward to using this tool to teach students better ways to learn, not just teaching the content."
At every grade, teachers have been thrilled with the features offered by ViewBoard and the performance improvement over traditional projectors. Teachers, and their students, feel empowered to draw and write over displayed content, brighter screens provide improved clarity and the myViewBoard canvas easily utilises online resources gives students a platform that encourages exploration, student engagement and collaboration. St Paul's Catholic College has outfit their Library and Auditorium with two ViewBoard IFP8650's - replacing projectors in those areas.
"For what it costs, it's incredibly good value. The question is, how are we going to use it from our pedagogical point of view? I know we will use the ViewBoard to empower our students to take control. It's all about them. This is where teaching should go; this is where learning should go."