THE EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS AND IMPLICATIONS
OF THE
INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD STRATEGY OF
RICHARDSON PRIMARY SCHOOL
____
A Brief Review
Mal Lee Dr. Maureen Boyle
CONTENTS
• Executive Summary p2
• Recommendations p4
• Purpose and Nature of the Review p5
• The Richardson Situation p5
• The Terminology p6
• Evolution of the Strategy p9
• The Richardson Strategy p9
• Educational Leadership p11 • Professionalism of Staff p11 • Learning Outcomes p12 • Pedagogy p12 • Student Reaction p13 • Parent Reaction p14 • The Attainments p15 • School Climate p17 • The Technology p17 • Financial Matters p18 • Evolving Opportunities p19 • Appendix p21
- Contributors to the Richardson Strategy - The Authors
- Acknowledgement
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part maybe reproduced by any process without permission from the Principal, Richardson Primary School, May
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ACT schooling needs to capitalise upon the path-finding work Richardson Primary School community has done in using information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance the quality of its teaching and learning.
Richardson is the first school in the ACT, and probably Australia, where the total school community, the students, staff and parents, has embraced a new approach to the use of ICT, which enhances the holistic education of the students.
It is also the first school to build its strategy around interactive white boards rather than the conventional desktop or laptop computer.
It has achieved this outcome in less than two years.
The Richardson effort represents a near revolution in the use of ICT in schools.
While the Minister, and the executive of the ACT Department of Education, Youth and Family Services (DEYFS) have appreciated the school’s attainments, the opportunities that exist for key parts of DEYFS to engage with, or build upon Richardson’s pioneering work are yet to be developed. These links have the potential not only to assist Richardson, but also to assist in sharing the dividends with other ACT schools.
One has only to wander around the classes, or to speak to the parents, the ‘kinders’ or any of the staff to appreciate the whole of school embracement of its ‘whiteboard’ strategy and the positive impact the strategy has had upon all facets of teaching and learning, and indeed on the overall culture of the school community.
Richardson is not a well-endowed community. The school is small.
However within two years it has achieved something that few other schools have done. Richardson has successfully integrated a pedagogically different use of ICT in every facet of education from Kindergarten to Year 6. It has every staff member wanting to use the strategy and also caused the parents to embrace and actively support the strategy. The key has been integration, in particular integrating into the ‘whiteboard’ deployment a host of educational and administrative activities, while linking the whiteboard initiative with a range of other whole of school student development and teaching programs. It has achieved all this with no external assistance, and with no charts to show the way.
The potential implications of this development for ACT schooling are profound. Richardson would be the first to say the impact of the strategy needs to be better evaluated, but when the response from the children, the parents and the staff is so positive and when the small staff is so preoccupied with acquiring and making the most of the technology, the school has little time itself to devote to research.
After 20 years, despite a vast investment by government and parents the desktop driven strategy has only had a narrow and limited impact on teaching and learning in ACT primary and secondary schools. Use of that strategy alone needs to be questioned.
The Minister, the Executive of the Department and the ACT Education Union have recognised that what is happening at Richardson is special.
The ACT now needs other champions to capitalise upon the leadership provided by the Richardson community, to build on the strategy identified and in the process, to expand horizons about identifying the best way to use ICT in schooling.
While some other schools in the ACT have begun investigating the use of interactive
whiteboards, it is now timely that primary and secondary schools collectively investigate the opportunities afforded by this technology. This will open the way for pedagogical discussions in using a combined education and ICT strategy, that is built around a large, interactive digital convergence facility that encourages whole of class involvement rather than a small, keyboard driven screen designed for individual use.
Pioneering efforts that have died from the lack of wider organisational and indeed school support unfortunately litter the history of the use of ICT in education.
The Richardson experience is unique in that it has obtained the support of the total school community in developing a dramatically different pedagogy that embeds technology as an interactive educational tool across all areas of the curriculum.
The following recommendations are made in order that the work done by this small, energetic and innovative school community is built upon and shared more widely.
RECOMMENDATIONS It is recommended that:
• The full educational and financial implications of the Richardson strategy be investigated at both the system and school level.
• The Department of Education, Youth and Family Services allocate appropriate ICT and education personnel to support and advance the Richardson strategy in the ACT. • Recognition is given to the unique nature of the Richardson ‘interactive whiteboard’
ICT and education strategy, and the achievements made by the Richardson school community.
• Cost comparisons on a system basis be made between the current PC focussed ICT education strategy, and the new interactive whiteboard strategy developed by Richardson
• The ACT Department of Education, Youth and Family Services explore, with the appropriate groups, how to undertake a longitudinal study of the full impact of the Richardson strategy upon the Richardson school community.
• A broadband connection for Richardson Primary is arranged as soon as feasible. • Liaison commences as soon as feasible with Richardson Primary School’s feeder high
school re the appropriate on-going enhancement of the skills developed by the Richardson children.
• The wider ACT school community becomes cognizant of the Richardson strategy and its implications.
• The ACT Department of Education, Youth and Family Services investigate the implications of the Richardson strategy for students with special needs.
• The ACT Department of Education, Youth and Family Services organise a more efficient method for acquiring the appropriate interactive whiteboard technology by schools that allows the schools to buy from a contract price.
• The Richardson school community research the link between the home and school use of ICT with a view to establishing a closer mesh between the school’s and the
students’ educational use of ICT in their homes.
PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THE REVIEW
The purpose of this review was to have an outsider examine what was happening with ICT and education at Richardson Primary, to comment on its impact and to identify how the school and the wider ACT school community could build on what had been done to date.
The school executive believed something special and unique was happening. It wanted an external commentator to check the veracity of those beliefs.
It did not want a protracted, longitudinal study, but rather a focussed and in-depth short analysis by someone with extensive experience in the use of ICT and education.
The review took the form of a series of class visits, interviews with the school executive and the teachers concerned, and a series of focus group interviews with the parents, and the Kindergarten, Years 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 children.
Richardson Primary School is one of the few in the ACT to receive special school funding to redress disadvantage.
It has 220 students, with eleven classes – two are learning support classes - and a teaching staff of 14.6 (FTE)
It has an active Parents and Citizens Association but does not have access to the kind of fund raising potential of most other Canberra communities. Nonetheless in the last two years that group has raised over $10,000 for the ‘SMART board’ program.
Traditionally Richardson is not viewed as one of the sought after teaching appointments, and has a history of significant annual turnover of staff.
It is of particular interest that this year no staff member has requested a move. THE TERMINOLOGY
Richardson has built its program around a technology generally known as interactive whiteboards.
Designed primarily with the corporate market in mind, the set up includes a largish screen, a data projector, a set of enabling software, and a back end computer that is invariably linked to a network, and such peripherals as a scanner, printer, DVD, and a VCR.
The particular brand chosen by Richardson was the SMARTboard. SMART Technologies is a Canadian company. Electroboard distributes the boards in Australia. There is now a wide range of boards and enabling software available.
The Richardson community refers to their interactive whiteboards as simply SMARTboards. After noting how the technology is now being employed at Richardson, the generic term ‘interactive whiteboard’ fails to communicate the immense education capacity of the tool. In reality Richardson is using the technology as a large-scale, digital convergence tool.
In the Richardson setting, the key is not however the technology, but rather the education and ICT strategy the school community has developed, and is continuing to develop.
The overall strategy is the key, and not simply the technology.
It is uniquely Richardson’s, in that it has been developed by the Richardson school community, for the Richardson context, with little input from other sources. In this review we refer to it as the Richardson strategy.
Louise Thake, the then Principal of Richardson Primary School, attended a demonstration of the new interactive whiteboard facility in 2001. The technology being demonstrated was that developed by SMART.
While the technology was designed for the office market, Louise recognised the potential use of the interactive whiteboard in teaching and learning.
The equipment was however expensive, and that stage well outside the budget of Richardson. Richardson Primary had a staff member in a rehabilitation program, who it was believed could make wise use of the technology if the funding could be found.
Comcare was subsequently convinced of the financial wisdom of providing the teacher concerned, Pat Moloney, with a SMART interactive whiteboard.
The technology was deployed initially with the Special Education class. Suffice it to say that a Special Education class in a disadvantaged school invariably brings with it some significant challenges.
Louise and Pat were of the belief that the interactive nature of technology and its ease of use would be ideal for the Special Education class. It was first used in 2002.
As Pat Moloney attests, the technology was initially used as a whiteboard. It was the classic Stage1 use of technology that John Naisbitt identified in Megatrends (1984), where the new technology was used to replicate the old ways.
However within weeks the class was responding exceptionally well to the technology, and students with scant ICT skills were actively using the system to further their education. What soon became apparent was the impact of the facility on both learning and the attitude of the children. Chronic non-attendees did not want to miss using the whiteboard. The children clearly enjoyed using the facility.
The decision was then made to adopt the technology across the school.
In time, the other teachers noted the positive impact on the children. They recognised the immense teaching and learning possibilities. They also saw how easy it was to use this new teaching tool. With a touch screen and Microsoft Word like prompts, teachers needed only a ‘few minutes’ orientation to get underway.
They, and their children, were soon able to focus on the functionality of the software rather than worrying about the technology.
The Principal was able to convince the Australian distributor of the SMART technology, Electroboard, to use Richardson as an entry into the Australian schools’ market, and to enter into a special arrangement for the acquisition of two more SMART systems, albeit the new less expensive versions. They went into use in 2002.
The impact of the technology continued to grow, as did the teachers’ appreciation of how to get the most out of the system.
Slowly they were coming to appreciate that this was far more than just a whiteboard. It was an interactive tool that could bring to the large screen a range of digital sources and resources. While there were no charts to guide the use of the system in schools, the professionalism and expertise of the teachers, the comments by a growing number of interested observers, and the primary teachers traditional concern to develop the children’s process skills soon saw the wider potential of the technology being realised.
The immediate impact on the children soon had the parents lending their support to secure SMARTboards for every class in the school. In both 2002 and 2003 they allocated the $10,000 raised by the art show to the purchase of more boards.
In 2002 the SMART company appointed Richardson as the second accredited SMART School in the world, and the first outside North America.
At the end of 2002 Louise Thake moved to the principalship of Gordon Primary.
The Richardson strategy was further developed by the new principal, Robin Geier, and the deputy principal, Peter Kent, both of whom saw the potential of the ‘white board’ strategy for Richardson and the wider ACT school system.
Realising the implications interactive whiteboards had for education a mini-conference was organised by Peter Kent in August 2003. The mini-conference showcased some of the educational uses of interactive whiteboards and brought to the fore the wider implications of this technology for schools. The mini-conference attracted over 100 participants from the ACT and surrounding region. The feedback revealed a strong grass roots desire to use the technology.
This year the whole of the school community has continued its quest to both secure the technology and to make best use of it. In 2003 all the SMART deployments were internally networked, allowing a sharing of the teaching resources and access to the Internet. A now considerable part of the teachers’ time – formal and informal - is devoted to the on-going enhancement of the teaching capability of the technology.
The school has had excellent moral support from the Minister, and the senior executive of the ACT Department of Education, Youth and Family Services. Most have visited the school and openly expressed their admiration for what is being done.
However it would appear an effective strategic partnership has yet to be formed between Richardson and key strategic units within DEYFS, relating to ICT support and learning technologies.
A similar partnership also needs to be developed between Richardson and its local feeder high school.
The small Richardson staff continues its work alone, albeit with immense support from the children and the parents. When the Year 2’s opt to organise their own raffle to help obtain the funds for a board for their classroom the staff and parents cannot fail to be impressed.
At the time of writing there are now eight of the eleven classes with SMARTboards.
The ambition is that the remaining classes and the library will also be using SMARTboards by the end of the year.
Richardson has passed the critical mass stage with the whiteboard technology and is now at point where interactive whiteboards are viewed as the norm at the school.
It is understood other ACT schools are taking up the interactive whiteboard technology, but that most still are only using them in a few classes.
Critical mass, and a whole of school strategy, are clearly vital if the total school community is embrace the technology.
THE RICHARDSON STRATEGY
Almost inadvertently Richardson Primary School has developed a strategy for making the wise use of ICT in education that is significantly different to those that have been employed over the twenty years.
Initially the plan was to use the technology as a supercharged whiteboard. As mentioned in time, with use and reflection, and with input from the many visitors the staff grew the strategy themselves.
They have become very conscious of the ever evolving potential of the technology, the related ever-evolving recognition of what can be done with multi-functional technology and the importance of adopting a strategy that can continue to grow.
At the time of writing the focus of the Richardson strategy is a large interactive screen, the power of digital convergence, predominantly ‘local’ input, the class, and the ready ability to integrate these many facets into teaching and learning.
In twelve months time key facets of that strategy are likely to be quite different.
What however is clear is that in two years Richardson has moved from Naisbitt Stage 1 to Stage 3, where they are using the technology for a host of new, and previously unimagined purposes.
• large screen • class group
• interactive nature of the boards, that allows the children to use their fingers, a pen, and a keyboard/mouse to work the board
• tactile quality of the screens
• mobility of the students in the classroom
• integration of a vast range of educational and administration activities
• linking of the ‘whiteboard’ developments with other holistic school programs, particularly the development of social skills
• use of multiple media, particularly from local sources • school wide networking of the boards
• learning within the school
• building upon a Microsoft ‘look and feel’ and set of conventions
Of particular note is that in the Richardson strategy there is no explicit teaching of ICT skills. Students learn these by watching their peers, the teacher and practising themselves on the whiteboard.
The strategy stands in marked contrast to the now ‘traditional’ desktop and/or laptop based ICT and education strategies.
Those strategies have been built upon: • the personal computer
• its small screen • the keyboard • the individual • stationary operation • segmented learning
• learning within the computer laboratory /classroom
The individual approach encouraged by the nature of the PC does not sit readily with most teachers, as the essential nature of teaching is group based. In retrospect it should come as no surprise that after twenty years it is still very difficult to find significant ICT and education programs where ICT is integrated across most key learning areas. The author’s consultancy research has found that much of ICT prowess attributed by the more affluent schools to their students in reality has come from the students’ access to, and use of the latest ICT in their homes.
The staff at Richardson is very conscious that it has only just begun to realise the potential of the strategy. Neither Richardson Primary nor the suburb of Richardson has broadband access. The comment was made that broadband could increase the potential uses tenfold.
What became apparent in talking to the parents and a cross section of children was that a very significant proportion of homes had been influenced to secure Internet access following the work done at the school using interactive whiteboards.
In essence the Richardson strategy, with the focus on the class, would appear to have inadvertently prompted a complementary program in the home. The parents spoke of the desire by the children, from Kindergarten upwards, to build on what had been done in class and to use the time available at home to further their learning. The indicators suggested that a significant proportion of the children’s homes now had Internet access.
While it will be important to further research the uptake and the nature of this usage, what was apparent is that in this lower socio-economic community a sizeable proportion of the parents have chosen to complement the work of the school by providing Internet access to their homes.
It is appreciated the Richardson school community is aiming to use this external review to help refine its strategy, but the time has also come for the school to identify comparable work being done elsewhere in Australia and overseas, to liaise with those organisations and to learn from their experiences. While it is appreciated much of the research currently available on the Web relates only to a subject or a class there are now recent, whole of school or indeed local authority reports available.
For example the Somerset LEA in the UK commissioned a report that observed the technology ‘has had a significant impact on the participating schools and that ‘interactive whiteboards’ are an effective tool which Somerset schools can use to help improve the quality of teaching and learning’ While the strategies employed by other schools and systems might be different, it is clear there is an ever-growing body of experience that Richardson, and the ACT, should contribute to and draw upon.
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP
In reviewing the evolution of the interactive white board strategy at Richardson one is
immediately struck by the educational leadership that has been displayed at all stages, at both the school and class level.
From the original vision and drive of the previous principal through to the on-going commitment and drive of the present principal and deputy, the Richardson initiative has demonstrated excellent school level leadership.
The same kind of leadership has been evident in the classroom, from a diverse group of teachers, all of whom who have been driven by the belief that used wisely, this technology could markedly enhance the education of the children of Richardson. From the initial work of Pat Moloney, through to that of near beginning teachers, one encounters professionals driven by the desire to do the right thing by ‘their’ children, and to travel that extra mile if it will help the kids.
What became apparent in talking with the parents is that they in their own way have also become educational leaders. They now have a level of understanding about, and commitment to the Richardson strategy that will not only see it develop even further but which could be harnessed to influence other parent groups.
PROFESSIONALISM OF STAFF
The discussions with the teaching staff were characterised by the professionalism of the group and by the pedagogical expertise they have brought to the evolution of the Richardson
strategy.
Two years ago the majority of the teaching staff had only rudimentary ICT skills. In the past two years the group has markedly enhanced those skills and now wants the higher order skills to progress the program even further.
While some still express reservations about their ICT capability, the reality is that collectively the Richardson staff has developed an expertise in the educational use of the interactive whiteboard technology that is probably unparalleled in Australia.
When questioned about the workload associated with the introduction of the Richardson strategy ,the more experienced users believe the workload had been reduced, while those still in the ‘start up’ phase believed it was presently much the same as in the past, but that in time the load would reduce.
Related was the desire expressed to be able do the lesson preparation at home and to load the teaching material directly on to the system away from the school. At the moment the teachers need to enter their material at school, outside class time. The belief was that remote entry would further enhance the efficiencies. Technically it can be readily done; it only needs the linkages. This is but one example of where external support for Richardson would be invaluable in progressing the Richardson strategy.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
In many respects the desired learning outcomes of the school are the same today as they were two years ago.
What would appear to have changed is that the rate of the attainment of those outcomes has increased.
A significant point that did emerge in the class visits, the staff discussions and the focus groups was that the flexibility of the ACT’s primary curriculum has allowed the school to move to a degree of integration virtually impossible for example in North America. PEDAGOGY
The teacher is still at the front of the class.
The focus is still primarily the class group or the teaching units.
However once the teachers have been allocated a SMARTboard their approach to teaching pedagogy changes rapidly and dramatically.
They soon adapt their approach to take advantage of the immense opportunities afforded to use a variety of media. They take their lead from their colleagues, they develop their own specialities and very soon they find themselves, almost unintentionally, making use of the range of tools within the SMART software suite, within a MS Office package, a variety of CD ROMs and on the Internet.
All would appear to get swept along by the reaction of the children, and the thrill of using a range of teaching strategies that have an immediate positive impact.
The point well made by a number of the teachers was that they know they can always revert back to using the interactive whiteboard as a whiteboard. It is a safety net, in a way that PCs – and labs in particular - are not. The interactive whiteboard technology can sit within the existing class or unit structure. A computer lab does not.
Both the authors are very conscious that this is a primary school, where the traditional focus is the child, where pedagogy is invariably given greater attention than in a secondary school and where the development of process skills and specific subject knowledge is central. It is a setting where the organisational structures readily lend themselves to the adoption of a more integrated mode of teaching.
The interactive whiteboard technology can sit readily within the existing class or unit structure.
An important feature of the teaching style that is evolving at Richardson is its similarity to the multi-media, multi-sensory, multi-faceted style the children experience with their computer games and TV. The technology allows teachers to capture material digitally from a plethora of sources, and then cut and paste it together to create new and exciting, multi-media teaching materials that are contextually relevant to the students and their learning needs.
Richardson has coined the term ‘e-teaching’ to describe this process.
Central to the Richardson strategy has been a concerted, on-going staff professional
development (PD) program. Every second Wednesday morning there is a staff ‘sharing and reflection’ PD session where the staff share and discuss the different approaches they are using.
• sharing of each unit’s achievements, at assemblies. There the children are encouraged to share what they had done with their SMARTboards. Both the children and the teachers are on show.
• conscious efforts to bring the parents into the school and to show what the children are doing with the interactive whiteboards
There is a universal pride among the staff regarding what they have achieved, both collectively and personally.
There is also a strong appreciation that as the technology evolves, and their realisation of what is possible grows so they are going to have to continue to refine their teaching. For example in speaking to the school’s teacher librarian, who has yet to be allocated her board, she was very conscious the boards had already dramatically impacted on her approach to the teaching of information literacy and on the nature of the collection required in the library in the future. The staff is also conscious the interactive nature of the whiteboards is particularly important for kinaesthetic learners, often boys, in that it gives them a valid reason to move around the classroom, to actively engage in the lessons and to attend to their social skills.
STUDENT REACTION
When one can sit and listen to five year old children in Kindergarten express what is distinct about the whiteboard focussed learning at Richardson and how it assists them to learn more, faster and in a more enjoyable and interesting way then one senses something rather special is happening.
When every class group, from Kindergarten to Year 6, speaks in a similar glowing fashion and all articulate the educational and social advantages of the Richardson strategy – and in a designated disadvantaged school – one recognises something almost revolutionary is occurring.
The contrast with consultancies done in highly affluent schools is dramatic. There the
universal concern of the students was the lack of consonance between what the students were doing with their technology in the home and the approach taken by the school.
In Richardson the student reactions were dotted by terms like: - ‘it’s cool’
- ‘it’s engaging’
- ‘my brother can’t stop yapping about it’ - ‘it’s fab’
- ‘it’s fun’
- ‘SMART work is easier’
- ‘we can go back and look at earlier work’
- ‘we can use it to watch videos, DVDs, TV or to go to the ‘Net’ - ‘it’s like having an up to date library in your room’
- ‘it’s more exciting’
- ‘we learn so much so fast’
- ‘it’s takes the stress off the teachers - ‘teachers use new ways’
- ‘we use it for every subject’
Of particular importance to the younger children was the tactile nature of the medium, that ready ability to engage with the material on the board and for the children to use their finger nail to open files, to write or simply to highlight a point.
Three of the classes don’t yet have a board. They can’t wait to get them.
Indeed the Year 2’s have taken the initiative of running their own raffle to secure their board. That sums up the children’s reaction to the strategy.
The children’s one major concern is what will happen when they move on to high school. They fear all the skills they have acquired will be lost.
PARENT REACTION
The parental reaction is the same, if not even more enthusiastic.
This is a group that has raised, in a small school, in one of Canberra’s less affluent communities, $10,000 in two years to acquire SMARTboards.
All within the focus group spoke glowingly of the impact of the Richardson strategy upon their own children, the school and indeed the use of the Internet in their homes.
All moreover were able to clearly articulate the educational and social benefits of the program. They spoke of the efforts the school had made, formally and informally, to ensure the parents knew about the whiteboard interactive initiative. The comment was made – ‘parents are begged to come into the kinder room and see what is being done’.
They commented on the impact the program had had upon their sons and daughters. ‘The kids are having a ball’. ‘They are learning without realising it’. ‘They’re playing’. ‘School is more fun’, ‘It makes it so easy’. ‘We’re so lucky’.
The group observed the strategy had ‘made the school more sociable. There is more sharing’. ‘The kids are so proud’. ‘There is a heightened self esteem among the kids’.
In terms of the learning some of the comments by parents were the: - ‘kinders are learning at a phenomenal rate’
- ‘kids help each other’
- ‘kids are able to see their peers in action’ - ‘importance of having the visual stimulus’ - ‘the bright kids are being pushed’
- ‘my son was in the special ed group and was struggling. With the SMARTboard he has moved from reading level 8 to level 20’
- ‘every one wants to put up their best work’
- ‘writing skills have increased – my child writes better than ever before’
Special mention was made by a parent of a boy with mild autism of the advances he had made since using the interactive whiteboard. The boy carries 0.3 teaching support. The mother commented the child ‘had gone ahead in leaps and bounds’. ‘It is a wonderful learning tool.’ “He is now able to keep up with the class.’
Every comment by the parents was positive about what Richardson is doing.
All but one of the focus group attendees now had Internet access. All commented how what was being learnt at school was built upon with the computers at home.
When asked about any shortcomings the parents were concerned about the amount of money the school community had to continue raising, but were more worried about what would happen to the students when they went to high school. They were very articulate about the importance of high level ICT skills in the modern world, were disappointed the local high school hadn’t made an effort to build on the Richardson strategy and were concerned their sons and daughters would lose their ICT skills.
THE ATTAINMENTS
We appreciate this is but a brief review of the Richardson strategy and that to fully appreciate its impact upon all facets of learning, it will be necessary to conduct a far more extensive longitudinal study. Indeed in our recommendations we suggest that should be done.
However from our combined years of experience as educators, and as the architects of many school reviews, there are some very significant signs to suggest the Richardson strategy has already had a profound and highly positive impact upon the quality of teaching and learning, and indeed the general climate of Richardson Primary.
Richardson Primary has succeeded in getting its total community, its children, parents and staff, to embrace the use of ICT in education in a manner never done by any school in the ACT. We know of no other school in Australia that can make this claim.
It has achieved this holistic acceptance in less than two years.
Its students, parents and teachers are proud of what they have achieved, believe in what they are doing, and as a group are able, from the ‘kinders’ upward are able to justify what they are doing.
All of the teachers have embraced the use of the interactive whiteboards, have significantly improved their ability to use ICT in their teaching, have refined their pedagogical skills and are proud of what they have achieved with the Richardson strategy.
So too are the parents and the children.
All the children, parents and teachers interviewed believed the teaching was more fun, more engaging, more exciting and was impacting upon the enjoyment, speed and depth of learning. All the teachers using the boards commented on their need to shorten their program timelines. The children would appear to be completing work faster and in greater depth.
The use of ICT by the children is now the norm from kindergarten onwards. Because the young can simply use their finger or a pen, and don’t have to work a keyboard, there are no inhibitions about making a contribution.
Discussions with the parents and the children indicated an expectation that the teachers make wise and effective use of ICT in their teaching.
Both the parents and the teachers made particular mention of the profound impact of the interactive whiteboards upon the children in the special education situations. Mention has already been made of the affect upon the boy with the autism. What was not mentioned was that this student participated in one of student focus groups and expressed his strong support. The special education teacher commented on the positive way the technology assists a hearing impaired child with a Cochlear implant and a visually impaired student.
The large visual stimulus facility was seen as particularly important, as was the ready ability to ‘replay’ work. The boards and a scanner allow the teacher to transform an A4 page into a very large image, to then manipulate that image and if desired to ‘play back’ work done. For example with the children’s handwriting the system can replay, in slow motion, the child’s writing of a letter. This kind of facility not only engages the children, but also holds their attention.
Related is the ability for the special education teacher to ‘post’ the administrative
arrangements for each of the group upon the board, and for the children to action them as required. Those with poor psycho – motor skills can opt to use their finger or a pen rather than the keyboard.
The teachers are mindful they need to begin accumulating hard data on the children’s attainments. Richardson has however a small staff. All student assessment and reporting at Richardson is still recorded on paper. As yet the Richardson teachers have no access to a database driven, system wide, outcomes based assessment and reporting package that allows primary teachers to readily enter and analyse their observations on the attainments of each child. They need that kind of support before they can begin readily quantifying student attainments.
SCHOOL CLIMATE
The teachers are very cautious about ascribing too much claim to the SMARTboards. They are mindful they have also implemented at the same time a series of other whole of school programs, and that the school is now smaller than in the past.
There is however the belief that the school is more sociable, there are fewer behavioural management and non-attendance problems, there is more sharing, there is a real sense of excitement and a sense of pride in what has been achieved. For once Richardson is leading the way and has something no other schools have.
The children and the parents expressed the same sentiments. THE TECHNOLOGY
All sections of the school community are very pleased with the choice of the SMART interactive whiteboard technology. They are aware there are now alternatives but all have found the SMART software to be very easy to use, and very, very robust. All particularly like SMART’s use of the Microsoft ‘look and feel’. It makes the start up very easy. It is the software being used by the parents at work, and by the children in the home.
The screens would appear to present few problems. Indeed the comment was made by the children that the glare was less than with the normal whiteboard.
The major area of concern was the data-projectors. Finances dictated the use of the less expensive, second hand projectors and consequently there were some problems with key stoning. There was the perennial concern with data projectors about the cost of replacing bulbs.
The interactive whiteboards are operating off the standard Department issue
PC s. They are now four years old and struggling to handle the latest software upgrade. Of note is that there has been no theft of any of the equipment.
All of the deployments are now networked, on the school’s ‘stand alone’ network. Internet access at Richardson is via a 64K ISDN line.
There is no ADSL broadband facility in the suburb of Richardson. Bandwidth is a major inhibitor.
The more technically literate teaching staff believe the potential of the interactive whiteboard could be increased ten fold with a broadband connection.
Peripherals
The SMART set up allows the ready integration of all of the normal peripherals plus VCRs. The key peripheral would appear to be the scanner, but extensive use is also made of DVDs and digital cameras.
Several teachers observed it is the scanner that has ‘revolutionised’ their teaching. The ready ability to translate the A4 page into a large, digital image that can in turn be manipulated opens so many previously unimagined teaching opportunities.
Photocopying
Of major note is that both the School Executive and the teachers have mentioned there has been a significant down turn in photocopying.
This is a trend predicted in the mid eighties for schools but this is the first evidence in the authors’ consultancy work where it has happened.
FINANCIAL MATTERS
The SMARTboard program of Richardson Primary has been fully funded by the Richardson school community, out of the normal funding available to a government primary school. The normal SMART set up, of the software, screen and data projector costs around $10,000 per deployment.
A conventional, ‘back of the room’, five-station deployment of PC s or Macs, with the associated software and networking would leave little change out of $12,000 -15,000. A data projector would add another $1,500.
A 1:3 computer: teacher ratio, trolley based, laptop deployment will cost at least twice that amount
The experience of the past twenty years would indicate that neither of the latter options would: - have any where near the kind of whole of school community educational impact as the
Richardson approach to the use of interactive whiteboards
- accrue savings on other teaching resources such as photocopying and the acquisition of books
- complement the home use of ICT by the children.
Of note is that Richardson Primary has, in addition to the interactive whiteboards, two
computer laboratories. The older one is now dated and not used. The newer of the two is now used periodically, but its continued existence is a question mark.
The growing belief is that savings can be accrued in photocopying and on the computer laboratory, and those funds diverted to supporting the interactive whiteboard thrust.
The implications of the Richardson strategy for the wider ACT government primary ICT and education strategy are clearly significant.
This study would suggest that ACT taxpayer could achieve much more educationally for its dollar from an interactive whiteboard ICT and education strategy than it is at the moment from the present desktop approach.
One is talking millions of dollars in savings, particularly if the ACT was to implement a whole of system purchasing model.
EVOLVING OPPORTUNITIES
In reflecting on what Richardson has achieved it is important to remember the earliest deployments are not quite two years old. Many only began at the start of this year. The Richardson strategy is still in its infancy.
All within the Richardson community realise the strategy will continue to evolve and to grow in strength, almost as rapidly as the technology itself.
The opportunity to forge a closer link between what is happening at school and in the home has been recognised; it needs to realised.
Broadband will open a new world.
Little or no use is being made of complementary software packages in the communications, ‘member management’, administration or student assessment areas, to name but a few. The power of the new web-based, database driven technology has not been touched. However the greatest potential advance lies with the teachers, those in Richardson, their colleagues in the ACT and those linked to the networked world.
Fifteen professionals, with less than two years experience using the technology, have made the Richardson advance.
However when their efforts are combined with hundreds, and in time, thousands of other teachers all will be able to benefit.
The key at this stage is to appreciate the unique nature of the Richardson strategy, to recognise the fundamental difference to the conventional desktop strategy and to ask the hard questions about the best way forward.
The Richardson community is carrying a large load.
It is proud of its achievements but it needs others to help bear the load of taking the strategy forward.
It needs its local high school to identify how it is going to build on Richardson’s lead. That task will not be easy. High schools are very different organisational units to primary schools. Strategies for one might not work in the other, but the investigatory work has to be done. However our belief is the nature of the interactive whiteboard technology would make it far easier to integrate in the present secondary school structure than personal computers. The high school’s other feeder primary schools need to decide what they should do. A load could be taken off Richardson if there were personnel at the system level who
understood the Richardson strategy and who could take the strategy forward, both at territory level and into the national policy making arena.
Most importantly the educational and parent leaders in the other ACT primary schools need to reflect on the Richardson success and decide how they should move.
The Richardson Primary School community have provided the ACT a wonderful lead in developing an exciting and innovative strategy, which clearly engages students in active learning processes.
It is now up to others to build on that work, and to recognise the contribution this small, less than well-resourced community has made to ACT schooling.
APPENDIX
• The Authors
Mal Lee (FACEA) was a former principal and Director of Schools with the ACT Department of Education. Over the past decade Mal has worked as a consultant on the ICT and education, at the school and system level. He has moreover written extensively on the subject in that period, particularly within Australia’s leading educational administration journal, the Practising Administrator.
Mal is a director of SNC, an Australian company whose prime focus is the development of web-based, database driven member and administration systems
Dr. Maureen Boyle (FACEA) was a former school principal, Director of Professional
Development and Director of Schools in the ACT. Maureen is now an educational consultant and teacher educator with the Australian Catholic University .
• Contributors to the Richardson Strategy
The Richardson strategy has been developed to date by the work of the following teachers. Robin Geier – Principal
Peter Kent – Deputy Principal Daniel Breen Susan Brown David Davy-White Sharon Dilley Susan Kearns Fiona Landford Susan Martin Patrick Moloney Krystyna Pirnke Smilja Rajak Inge Schindlmayr Ben Smith Michael Smith Louise Thake Nicole Wynne • Acknowledgement
Richardson Primary School would like to acknowledge and thank the Professional Learning section of DEYFS for their support in providing the funds to commission this report.
