Creating a Connected Environment at St Mary’s College with Microsoft 365
St Mary’s College, overlooking St Mary’s Bay in Ponsonby, Auckland, has been successfully educating young women since being established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1850. With a roll of almost 1000, St Mary’s College has the goal of creating a connected environment in line with the school’s strategic plan. Microsoft Office 365 is an integral component of their vision to make the most of available resources that integrate technology into teaching and learning best practice.
Challenges
Solutions
Results
A considered approach to technology
“We have taken a considered approach to technology.” says Elena Grant, Deputy Principal at St Mary’s, “We have made incremental steps towards creating an inclusive environment where all students and teachers are able to take full advantage of the benefits. It has been a natural progression. It was important for us to set up a stable network for growth, then add capabilities like BYOD as they became viable. We then adopted Microsoft 365 as our preferred platform for instruction, collaboration and administration.”
“We chose Microsoft on the strong recommendation of our technology partner, New Era Technology,” continues Elena Grant. “This decision was made easier by the support Microsoft offered and the fact that Microsoft has a number of special programmes specifically developed to help schools like ours get the most out of the Microsoft learning environment.”
Tech Angels and the eLearning Lead Team
A focus for St Mary’s College is ensuring that everyone has the support they need to successfully embrace the technology.
New Era Technology’s on-site technician is also available for on-going support across the board.
“This year,” explains Mr Paterson, “we created a Microsoft Team for all our Tech Angels so that they could track their progress towards earning a badge that recognises their skills. We gave them specific tasks including preparing a personal profile on the Team notebook, writing at least ten meaningful comments or questions through the year on the conversation tab and responding to a video. This was developed by the eLearning Lead Team, and shared via Microsoft Stream.”
Keith is especially pleased by how easy it has been to get the students on board. “The incentive of a Tech Angel badge provided the initial reason for students to engage,” he notes, “but once they were up and running, the initiative took on a life of its own. And now they are genuinely enjoying it.”
“The thing I like about Microsoft 365 is that it allows students and teachers to explore beyond the walls of the classroom.” Keith continues, “It allows students from different year levels, at different times and in different spaces to interact with each other on projects with similar objectives and areas of focus. They can start to have ideas on how to use the technology for themselves in ways that best suit their situation.”
“St Mary’s is bringing students and teachers to the point where they are open to learning about what is possible. Great tools like OneNote and Teams are being used in a million different ways for a million different purposes.”
Two key components of New Zealand’s eLearning Curriculum (2007) are to facilitate shared learning by enabling students to join or create communities of learners that extend well beyond the classroom and to assist in the creation of supportive learning environments by offering resources that take account of individual, cultural or developmental differences. St Mary’s College is using Microsoft 365 to meet those guidelines.
“Technology has given us a platform to create a connected environment for students, teachers and staff,” says Elena. “We have built our network in a considered manner to ensure that everyone can participate at their own pace. Microsoft 365, with tools such as Teams, OneNote and SharePoint, fully supporting our vision. Technology will never replace a good teacher,” Elena concludes, “but technology is having a major impact indeed on the way good teachers deliver our curriculum.”
Frequently Asked Questions
College selected Microsoft 365 as part of a considered approach to creating a connected learning environment. The school adopted the platform for instruction, collaboration, and administration, supported by guidance from New Era Technology and Microsoft’s education-focused programmes. This gave St Mary’s a stable, scalable foundation for integrating technology into teaching and learning.
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