Media computer case

Fully integrated Apple technology combined with experiential teaching and learning creates a template for the future of education at a suburban Melbourne school.

iMacs and iBooks in every classroom, personal web pages for every pupil and a constant stream of international visitors admiring what they see. Welcome to your first day at Essendon North Primary School. Population: 500 and doubling.

Hands up if you have ever heard of the Victorian Government's seven 'Navigator Schools', established to explore the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) and challenge traditional approaches to teaching.

Keep your hand up if you knew Essendon North was one of two Navigator schools awarded the prestigious ComputerWorld Honours laureate by the Smithsonian Institute in 2001. This world-renowned body recognized the schools' achievement in creating a model learning environment based around originality, vision and significant benefit to society. OK, hands down now.

Choosing Apple was about making a commitment to kids and their learning. Apple has a serious investment in education. But we don't just focus on technology--we try to make life more enriching and encourage people to see our school as a riving model of learning for life.

Michael Guilieri, Principal, Essendon North Primary School

Between 1925 and 1995, Essendon North was a typical chalk and blackboard K-6 primary school. Then something called 'whole school change' happened.

Technology was incorporated into the fabric of the classroom. Teachers and students were given networked, multimedia-capable computers and presentation technology. Everyone started using iMacs, eMacs and iBooks, as well as scanners, printers, digital video and digital stills cameras.

Expectations about novel, technology-integrated Navigator schools like Essendon North were high in 1995. Educators were banking on enhanced student learning, better information distribution and extended learning beyond the classroom.

Almost a decade on, a student waiting list, world-wide acclaim and a student population that's doubled inside seven years, attest to the wholesale success of the whole school change process.

There's a sense of urgency and excitement around Essendon North--yet there is always time to reflect on the learning journey from chalk-and-talk to guided discovery. And, as Essendon North Principal Michael Guilieri explains, a vital element in this change is the school's partnership with the creator of technology for the classrooms of tomorrow--Apple.

Apple's part in the Essendon North success story

In 1996, Essendon North sat down to develop a framework that identified the key ingredients of great teaching and learning. Consideration then focused on how technology could be most effectively integrated to support learning at the school.

In April 2001, this Apple Distinguished School developed a rough prototype of a new technology-based education platform known as 'eTools'. Funding for full deployment of the system was approved in July 2001. With assistance from Apple, the school was able to release its IT technician and the inventor of eTools, Stephen Palmer, from hardware maintenance duties so he could focus on coding for the project.

eTools was born out of the need to find an appropriate format for presenting work that children create digitally, such as movies and slideshows. With eTools, each student at Essendon North can build their own web page with personalized content. The web pages, stored in an electronic filing cabinet, contain many different forms of media, including text and images, to illustrate each pupil's likes and dislikes (pets, best friends and football teams), an optional photograph and QuickTime movies.

Mr Guilieri says eTools is a powerful vehicle for creating new ideas and it provides an avenue for students to present the knowledge they acquire. 'Students can use still and moving pictures, sound and text to articulate their ideas. We are creating a new way of learning and knowing. Our system hits at the heart of inquiry, of thinking, of investigating', he says.

eTools represents the beginnings of a portal or child's gateway to the learning experience. This 'digital portfolio' solution is the electronic equivalent of traditional, paper-based reports and work folios. Key teachers Merryn MacNamara and Helen Otway have trialed eTools with great success over the past twelve months.

Essendon North is investigating ways to use eTools to house online class schedules and teacher-student contracts. It will also provide discussion forums where kids can post 'wonderings', ideas and questions. Later this year the school will begin trials of eTools-based homework, such as web-based times table exercises with associated time challenges--for Grade Six students.

Across the school, every iMac is configured with a consistent look and feel so students can move between them easily. The core software suite on each iMac includes Microsoft Office, AppleWorks, iMovie, iPhoto and the Mozilla web browser. To get eTools up and running, the school inducted a group of Grade Five pupils as technical leaders to teach the teachers and fellow students.

eTools brings educational benefits

Since whole school change began, observers are noticing that students now learn at different speeds, engage in more spontaneous sharing, develop greater confidence as independent learners and become more socially aware.

Right now, kids can access any of their friends' pages anywhere and at any time, while mums and dads can go online to view a digital portfolio explaining what their child did at school that day. The school encourages opportunities for parents to engage with their children as part of its aim to promote inquiry and prevent kids disengaging from the education system.

Mr Guilieri believes that extending learning into the home is what successful primary schooling should aim to deliver in the future. Two out of every twenty-five students at Essendon North are currently without home computers. The school works around this by inviting parents to come in and view their child's work on iMacs in any one of the school's twenty-four classrooms.

The Victorian Government requires twenty per cent of school hardware be turned over each year. Essendon North is even more ambitious, aiming for a twenty-five per cent annual turnover rate that is funded by its user-pays professional development programs, courses for parents and weekend classroom leasing initiatives.

One third of Essendon North's classrooms deploy AirPort wireless networking to connect more than 100 iMacs and share information with the teacher's iBook. After starting with an AppleShare IP server, Essendon North has now migrated to Mac OS X servers bundled with MySQL database capabilities and the Apache Tomcat Java servlet system. The new Mac OS X set-up provides the school with the scope to adopt cutting-edge open source and Internet technologies.

The partnership between Apple and Essendon North extends well beyond hardware and software, the Principal says. The success of the Essendon North model is now recognized and imitated well beyond the four walls of the classrooms. The school hosts a steady stream of national and international visitors who come to learn about the little education revolution that is taking place in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

'Choosing Apple is about making a commitment to kids and their learning. Apple has a serious investment in education. But we don't just focus on technology: we try to make life more enriching and encourage people to see our school as a living model of learning for life', Mr Guilieri says.