“The long battery life greatly reduced the challenge of where and how often we’d need to recharge the computers. It just made sense for us to purchase them.”
— Martin Leicht, Information Technology Director, Western Academy of Beijing
Western Academy of Beijing:
An Ethos of Engaging and Creative Learning
Beijing, China — Thirteen years after its inception, the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) had become a leading institution of primary and secondary education for expatriates living in Beijing. The administration and teachers had developed a strong technology infrastructure. Now they were ready to capitalize on this foundation through educational innovation. Seeing the challenges of communicating with their hypercreative, multitasking students from all over the world, WAB moved to a 1 to 1 learning program with Apple notebooks. This new learning model helped them create a digital learning environment that is second to none for today’s 21st-century learners.
The Western Academy of Beijing has always viewed technology as an enhancement to the curriculum, and has employed Macintosh computers from the beginning. In keeping with its western style of education, administrators aim to provide an educational environment that meets or exceeds the standards of the best schools in the North America, Europe, and Australia. So when those institutions began evaluating notebook initiatives, WAB was among the first schools in Asia to explore a similar learning model. Its first pilot 1 to 1 notebook project back in 1997, which saw the distribution of PowerBook computers to a class of eighth-graders, demonstrated the potential of 1 to 1 learning.
“We could see that the computer lab and classroom desktop paradigms were only getting students so far,” recalls Martin Leicht, information technology director at WAB. “The big sea change came with the advent of wireless technology. With a ‘wireless-mobile’ paradigm in place, students and teachers could use digital resources in nearly every subject at any time, and from nearly anywhere.”
Apple Notebooks Ideal for Students
WAB Director John McBryde says there were several factors that led them to select the Apple notebooks. In addition to a price point that was “extremely competitive,” he and his colleagues saw that the notebooks were particularly robust in design, and would withstand the handling of their youngest users — four-year-olds.
“As soon as we saw that first iBook,” says Leicht, “we knew that it would solve a number of issues we’d had in the past. With the addition of the FireWire port, mass imaging became practical. Also, the long battery life greatly reduced the challenge of where and how often we’d need to recharge the computers. Plus, they were very ‘kid-friendly.’ It just made sense for us to purchase them.”
Supporting the Always-on Learning Environment
In the years since WAB implemented its 1 to 1 learning program, the school’s student body has increased dramatically in size. To support students’ and teachers’ IT needs, and the daily use of rich digital media tools in WAB’s campuswide wireless environment, WAB deployed 25 Xserve servers. The servers support the vast majority of network services in the school, including LDAP, PowerSchool, an Xsan storage system, and email services for two thousand users.
With the powerful back-end support of the Xserve, WAB has been able to put in place the technologies that have transformed the traditional classroom model. WAB chose Etech Group’s Studywiz, a server-based software product that is featured in the Apple Instructional Management Solution, as their instructional management system. As a result, WAB now has an “always on” learning environment.
“Teachers are using Studywiz to provide an online learning and communication environment,” McBryde explains. “Studywiz is the glue that really brings the teachers and the students together using their notebook computers.”
* The mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and represents neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.
