Covenant Christian School values God's gift of digital technology as a tool for learning, communicating and creativity.
Educational technologies enable our students to engage with and use information, give expression to their imaginative ideas, create for a diverse audience, communicate with a wider learning network and engage in collaborative learning.
Covenant is equipped with leading IT facilities that are driven and managed by our dedicated TechServe team.
“To willingly serve and empower the Covenant community by leading a Christ-centred response to technology, delivering services which support and enhance teaching and learning, while being responsible stewards of creation.”TechServe's purpose statement
Infrastructure
Covenant has a robust network infrastructure providing staff and students with a reliable platform from which a wide range of services can be accessed. All key infrastructure is on a fixed replacement cycle, ensuring ongoing reliability of the services provided. The school has an ongoing relationship with multiple external technical partners who are able to bring a range of skills and specific expertise as we seek to continually improve our technical infrastructure.
Cloud Services
The school provides access to a number of specific services for our students for a variety of purposes:
- Canvas – Learning Management System
- Microsoft 365, Teams and OneDrive – Software and Cloud based data storage
- Adobe Creative Cloud suite (where appropriate and necessary for learning)
Technology in the classroom
We are blessed to have teachers who carefully consider when and how to implement technology during their lessons in a way that can benefit learning. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report in 2015 states that heavy users of computers in the classroom “do a lot worse in most learning outcomes” and that “in the end, technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching.” We are constantly aiming to use technology in a way that might amplify the great teaching that is happening in our school. This means that we won’t be using technology in every lesson. However, our ongoing expectation is that every student from Year 7 to Year 12 has a device with them at school every day.
Technology in Junior School
Technology in Secondary School
Technology in Junior School
Kindergarten and Year 1
Students share a class set of iPads plus keyboard. There is one iPad per 4 children. This allows for suitable supervision and assistance in the classroom and facilitates effective group work.
Year 2
Students share a class set of iPads plus keyboard. There is one iPad per 2 children. This recognises the growing responsibility of the children and allows for further independent learning.
Years 3 to 6
All students have a personal iPad plus STM keyboard case to encourage productivity and digital literacy. This allows them to complete independent work using our Learning Management System, Canvas.
General Technology
Most classrooms have interactive smartboards, providing opportunities for collaborative digital learning and an interactive way, enabling our teachers to use intelligent features/functions for multiple media and teaching platforms.
Apple Classroom is used in our Junior School spaces. It is a powerful teaching assistant and helps our teachers guide students through a lesson with an iPad, check their progress, and keep them on track.
Safeguards for our students
All iPads in Junior School are school managed. This allows apps to be deployed as needed for teaching and learning. All iPads are connected to the school network providing age-appropriate content filtering.
All iPads are only used under teacher supervision. In addition to this, our restricted and monitored network provides added layers of safety and security.
All students are required to sign a Technology Agreement that details the expectations and guidelines for acceptable technology use, along with consequences for misuse.
Technology in Secondary School
Years 7 and 8
All students in Years 7 and 8 will be issued with a school-managed Apple iPad plus STM keyboard-case to encourage productivity and digital literacy. This device will be theirs to use until the end of Year 8 (or prior to leaving).
Tablet devices, particularly the iPad, are very well suited as a personal learning device. Many students are already familiar with the Apple iOS operating system, particularly those students who have been using the iPad at Covenant since Junior School. This familiarity means that students are not hampered by having to learn an operating system, but can adapt very quickly to new and innovative learning opportunities. Students can focus on the learning, not the technology itself.
It is expected that the iPads will NOT be used in every period of every day in every class.
Years 9 to 12
There is not a 'one size fits all' approach to personal technologies, therefore the BYOD program gives students and parents the opportunity to select a device that suits the preferences and personal learning needs of the individual student.
Digital Discipleship
We recognise that digital technology is a good gift from God. Our responsibility as disciples of Christ is to engage and use it in a way that honours God. We also recognise that digital technology adds to the complexity of parenting and so we are committed to partnering with parents in this area. We are intentional about the teaching of attitude, behaviour and skills that will shape a culture of responsibility, respect, protection and education in the digital space. Our staff are well equipped to nurture, support and guide students to become responsible, competent, and wise users of digital technologies.
