A powerful and stable internet connection plays an important role in the digitalization of schools in Germany. The federal broadband funding program of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure(BMVI) promotes, among other things, the connection of schools to the broadband network. In this context, schools are considered to be underserved if not every class has at least 30 Mbit/s. School buildings that do not achieve this bandwidth can be provided with a faster Internet connection via their municipality’s or district’s application for funding under the federal broadband funding program.
The district of Wesel in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region intends to use the BMVI’s funding program for broadband expansion to provide some schools in the district’s 13 towns and municipalities with more powerful Internet connections. To cover a profitability gap, the district is receiving over 8.3 million euros in federal funding for broadband expansion in the municipalities of Alpen and Sonsbeck as well as the town of Xanten. Furthermore, the North Rhine-Westphalian state program is funding the expansion costs with 6.6 million euros. The district is also providing 1.6 million euros of its own funds.
As part of the infrastructure project, 316 kilometers of civil engineering work will be carried out. In addition to 1,728 households, 13 institutions, including seven schools, a vocational school, a care facility and four other educational institutions, will benefit from transmission speeds of 50 Mbit/s and higher. The Xanten-Sonsbeck comprehensive school will also be able to benefit from a faster Internet connection thanks to this application by the district of Wesel for the federal broadband funding program. The recognized “media school” in the town of Xanten, the Roman, cathedral and Siegfried city on the Lower Rhine, already has a comprehensive concept for the use of digital media for teaching purposes. The comprehensive school pursues the goal of optimizing the learning processes used in the classroom and is characterized by the targeted promotion of media skills among pupils in accordance with the NRW Media Passport. Digital media are therefore integrated into lessons in order to convey and deepen subject content and to enable independent task solving. Ultimately, the focus is on individual support for the pupils.
IT teacher Christian Hauk accompanies the progress of digitalisation at the Xanten-Sonsbeck comprehensive school and emphasizes that the pupils inform themselves independently with the help of digital devices and applications in class: “The pupils have the competence to find the right medium for the learning progress they are currently making.” Pupils at the comprehensive school first acquire this skill in compulsory IT lessons in years 5 and 6, where they learn various programs with self-produced educational videos and then use them in various subjects. They also complete the so-called cell phone driving license, which “shows the dangers and rights, opportunities and tools for carrying out everyday learning scenarios digitally”.
Hauk emphasizes: “Mobile phones may only be used in class if the teacher allows it.” Here, for example, pupils can also find their timetable in an app and teachers use a digital class register. “A cell phone is just as much a tool as a fountain pen, ruler, book or exercise book and therefore belongs on the school desk,” emphasizes Hauk. From Year 7 at the latest, smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops are an integral part of lessons at the Xanten-Sonsbeck comprehensive school as learning aids. In line with the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) principle, pupils can use their own digital devices for teaching purposes. Anyone who does not have a suitable device can borrow one from the school with the appropriate media card. “With BYOD, we want to prepare our students for the professional world in a contemporary way,” says Christian Hauk. The 115 or so devices currently on loan from various manufacturers include laptops, netbooks, tablets, projectors and document cameras. The devices are managed and maintained by media scouts, specially trained students from years six to nine.
Since the 2009/2010 school year, the 30 or so volunteer media scouts have been supporting teachers and their fellow pupils with technical instruction on the devices and are the direct point of contact for questions or problems. Compared to stationary PCs, the mobile devices are available to pupils more quickly and in sufficient numbers so that they do not have to coordinate with other classes for the classic computer room or the use of the tablet set. Thanks to the barcodes on the devices, the media scouts always know how many are still available and where the borrowed devices are located. Another advantage of mobile devices is that they are usually intuitive to use. Depending on the task at hand, the appropriate mobile devices can be integrated into lessons and various learning opportunities can be exploited. Depending on their level of competence, students can choose the right device individually so that they can learn the material at their own pace and using the appropriate learning method.
When integrating digital applications in the classroom, it is important for students and teachers to share their previous experiences or new apps and programs that may be useful for teaching. In this way, the participants support each other in the implementation of the tasks. The ideas of the pupils and media scouts are also taken up outside the classroom. For example, there are placemats in the cafeteria that provide students and teachers with concise information on the safe use of digital media or cyberbullying. An important prerequisite for the use of digital media at school is an appropriate digital infrastructure with high bandwidths that can guarantee stable and fast networks. For the 75 teachers and 1,100 pupils at the Xanten-Sonsbeck comprehensive school, the connection to a more powerful broadband network is therefore a positive change.
With the prospect of fast internet, the school has just launched a new project: a team of six teachers and five students is preparing to use a cloud-based application with word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs as a learning platform. “From the summer and with the start of the learning platform, a higher bandwidth will be more than necessary,” adds Christian Hauk.
Photo: Digital media in lessons at Xanten-Sonsbeck Comprehensive School.
Photo credit: Xanten-Sonsbeck Comprehensive School.