Information Technology
A vision for the use of Information and Communication Technologies at St Mary’s College
St Mary’s College instigated a strategic ICT upgrade plan in May 2010 to fit the principal Tom Dorey’s vision which sees the modern classroom expand beyond the traditional four walls into the web "cloud" to:
- Provide differentiated and self-paced learning opportunities
- Provide access to learning resources from home and school
- Provide opportunities for collaboration and authentic learning
- Provide systems to monitor and manage individual students ICT capabilities
 This strategic initiative has seen the College in one year double the number of computers provided for student and staff use to almost 500 using the government Digital Education Revolution monies. Teaching staff are now all provided with laptops to utilise fully in the classrooms and connect to projectors and large LED/LCD monitors to show the students educational content or teach key computer skills.
2011-2012 Focus Themes
- A more sustainable and energy conscious approach to the delivery of ICT services in the College in keeping our green ICT policy
- Anywhere, anytime access to relevant and up to date content rich information resources.
- Anywhere, anytime access to virtual classrooms
- Multimode anywhere, anytime communication – [ voice, SMS, PA, Video on demand, Internet, Intranet, Social networking]
- Enhancing the delivery of rich educational content through a high speed internet link
Years 9-12
In years 9-12 the College provides a 1:1 computer ratio for student’s using a mixture of desktop, laptop and netbook computers spread around the College connecting via an extensive high speed wired and wireless network. The new resource centre will also have interactive touch screen all-in-one computers to enhance student learning. Students also have the option of bringing their own computers onto the College site and these can be connected into the network to access web resources.
 Staff Email
The staff email system has been upgraded to the latest Microsoft Exchange 2010 mail system and the student’s email has been moved offsite into the internet ‘cloud’ using the live@edu system provided by Microsoft that gives the student’s a 10 GB mailbox and 25 GB SkyDrive where they can share documents and collaborate with other students.
It also gives them full access to the Web based versions of Office 2010 such as word/ excel. They can either synch their mobile phones to get their email if they are so inclined.
 Network Accounts and Webmail/SkyDrive
From Year 5 each student has her own network account and webmail/ SkyDrive. All students from kindergarten upwards are taught by their class and specialist ICT teachers how to use IT resources.
All the servers the students and staff connect to have been virtualised to protect resources as well as save costs on hardware and power in keeping with the College’s green ICT policy.
 Learning Management System
The new Learning Management System introduced in January 2010 is based on Scholaris and Microsoft SharePoint. It has many functions to aid staff and students to work more efficiently in the online world and these include virtual classrooms for the students, staff instant access to student medical alerts and parent contact details and staff/ student timetables, electronic student attendance, electronic newsletters, daily bulletins and staff calendars to name but a few functions.
The next stage of that project in 2012 will be to provide parental access to the relevant parts of the portal relating to their son/ daughter such as attendance, homework due, timetables, alerts such as medical conditions and access to staff.
The final piece in this exciting puzzle is the College’s new super high speed internet connection and an integrated communication system based on Microsoft Lync. St Mary’s College is fortunate with its central location in Hobart and a 900 metre fibre optic link under Hobart is currently under construction to directly join the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet). This will be completed by the end of August 2011 and will be a 1000 MBps down/ 1000 Mbps up unlimited download (10x times faster than the NBN).
The educational possibilities are endless such as language students' Skyping with their language partners in the new Skype Bar that will be part of the new Resource Centre and Women in Science Centre due for opening in July 2011. Students will be able to access all the resources of YouTube where there are endless tutorials, taking virtual tours of Art Galleries, History and Science Museums or accessing any one of a multitude of interactive online educational resources.
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