Teachers at St Andrew's Anglican College wanted to promote real-world workplace skills in students. They upgraded all devices to Windows 8 and implemented Office 365 to enable digital collaboration in the cloud. This allowed students to work together seamlessly on devices with touch screens, sharing files and collaborating remotely. The new system transformed classroom dynamics and prepared students for effective digital collaboration beyond school.

1. Touch-screen collaboration
promotes real-world skills
Teachers at St Andrew’s Anglican College wantto maximise students’
workplace abilities. To promote digital skills, they upgraded all devices to
Windows 8 and stimulated collaboration in the cloudwith Office 365.
OFFICE 365 EDUCATION.
Provide staff, faculty, and students at your
school with complimentary email, sites, online
document editing and storage, IM, and web
conferencing.
For schools that want tomodernisetheircommunications
and productivity infrastructure on their terms visit
office.microsoft.com/en-au/academic/
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COMPANY SUMMARY
St Andrew’s Anglican College (St Andrew’s) is an award-
winning independent private school in Peregian Springs on
Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Founded in 2003, the school
has 1,200 Kindergarten to Year 12 students, and employs
approximately 175 staff.
THE CHALLENGE
School leaders at St Andrew’s want their students to learn
ICT skills that will give them a clear advantage in the
workforce and higher education. Their goal is not just
technical proficiency, they want students to learn the soft
skills of digital collaboration so they can work confidently
and effectively in any environment, both now and in the
future.
Director of ICT, Rory Chapman, trialled stylus-enabled
touch-screen devices with Mathematics and Science
teachers, and observed how they made student-teacher
interactions more potent: “Touch-screen devices are very
powerful, and the technology is clearly coming of age,” he
says. “By January 2013, devices were light and cheap and
there were lots of models to choosefrom.”
THE SOLUTION
St Andrew’s purchased 250 Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabooks for
Year 7 and Year 10 students, which Chapman deployed with
the Windows 8 operating system. In addition, he purchased
100 Microsoft Surface RT devices for Year 5 students. During
the January break, he upgraded all 1,000 remaining student
devices to Windows 8, and installed Office 365 on every
tablet.
“We chose Windows 8 because it appeared to be the best-
adapted platform for stylus and touch-screen working,” says
Chapman. ”Also, Windows 8 has excellent integration with
SkyDrive Pro in Office 365: this makes saving files in the
cloud quick and intuitive. Windows 8 also integrates well
with Microsoft SharePoint, which we use for our Learning
Management System (LMS).”
THE RESULTS AND BENEFITS
Dynamic collaboration inside the classroom: Windows 8
has transformed theway Year 7 and 10 students work
together. “Now, when you walk into a Year 10 classroom
you see a different dynamic,” says Chapman. “Students
cluster around screens, and everyone is interacting with the
application. Windows 8makes touch-screen collaboration
very natural.”
“When you walk into a Year 10 classroom you see a
different dynamic. Students cluster around screens
and everyone is interacting … Windows 8 makes
touch-screen collaboration very natural.”
Rory Chapman,Director of ICT, St Andrew’sAnglicanCollege
Seamlesscloud working: Windows 8 spurs remote
collaboration too. “Integration with Office365 and
SharePoint makes it simpler to open and save files in
SkyDrive Pro and the LMS,” says Chapman. “It unlocks the
usefulness of the cloud, and fosters good team-work
beyond the classroom.”
Scope for wider collaboration: Now, students open
documents in SkyDrivePro and use Lync video calls to
discuss and develop ideas remotely. ”Our students are
reaching out beyond the school and Peregian Springs to
students across Australia and the world” says Chapman.
Preparation for post-school years: Windows 8 and Office
365 are helping St Andrew’s fulfill its skills vision. “Students
are not just learning how to use ICT, they are learning how
to work together—efficiently and effectively,”says
Chapman. “For them, digital collaborationwill besecond
nature.”