Holy Trinity CSS wins $30,000 in new tech in national Digitize Your Classroom contest

teachers holding various items of school techonology

Feb. 7, 2020

When Jill Barker was sent the link to the CDW online #DigitizeYourClassroom contest, she handed the discussion over to her Grade 9 geography students.

“It was an open invitation to any classroom teacher to fill in and answer the question: how does technology change your classroom?” Barker said. “So I surveyed my students, because I use technology a lot in the classroom. I asked students how they felt technology impacted their learning.”

The students responded with a variety of different answers.

“The one that really resonated with me was the idea of inclusion. It allowed for students to feel like they were included in the classroom space if they all had access to the same technology. They felt that it gave them a global view and they could collaborate better with their peers,” she said.

Barker summarized the student responses and submitted it to the contest and didn’t think much about it again until she received an email letting her know that her classroom had won the contest.

“I thought it was a joke that I had won,” she said.

The $30,000 prize pack includes virtual reality headsets, robots, a video conferencing kit and a number of educational technology packages.

 

Barker is the school’s curriculum chair in Canadian World Studies and has recently moved into the learning commons. She plans to spend some time learning about the new technology and the possibilities it holds for student learning, but she already has plans to use the VR headsets to enhance history learning by allowing students to immerse themselves in historic battle fields.

“I’d like to set up some sort of tech space in the learning commons to make it accessible and available to all students at Holy Trinity,” she said.

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