Making the most of teacher time with ActivPanel
Rockhampton, Australia, is home to The Hall State School – where there are around 325 students from preparatory level up to Year 6. The Hall is committed to treating every student as an individual and offers a range of activities around creating a positive impact, including a school-wide recycling program and a whole-school social-emotional wellbeing program.
The Hall is keen to keep up with developments in education technology, and has access to a range of online resources and a few interactive whiteboards across the school. That said, looking for ways to upgrade technology on a tight budget is no mean feat – until teacher Emily Leschke found out about the Promethean Grant!
Having previously met with one of the Promethean team and seen an ActivPanel demonstration, Emily was convinced that it would be a brilliant addition to her classroom. “We didn’t have budget to purchase one ourselves,” she explained, “but we were overwhelmed by the potential of the technology.”
Emily was looking to introduce a more interactive classroom experience, and recognised the potential for the ActivPanel to provide a platform through which the students could work together and share ideas. On top of this, Emily was looking for technology which could help streamline workloads for herself and her fellow teachers by bringing their resources together and enabling seamless lesson planning and delivery on the fly. With the help of her class, Emily put together a winning entry to the 2017 Promethean Grant, and had an ActivPanel installed in her classroom.
The Hall had a few devices available to them already, such as iPads, and Emily found that the Promethean ActivPanel interactive display worked well with their existing resources. Elaborating on this, Emily added: “As a teacher, I found that the in-class connectivity functions really helped to bring content to life through using the technology to integrate different media and resources.”
The Hall State School’s ActivPanel has enabled Emily and her colleagues to find new ways of engaging and inspiring their students whilst managing their own workloads more effectively. Enthusiastic to maximise the potential of the ActivPanel, Emily has undertaken classes on the interactive benefits of the technology so as to help the staff upskill across the school. Promethean has since recognised her efforts once more by gifting Emily’s class VR shirts at EduTECH 2018, setting them up for a fantastic virtual reality experience.
