The pupils at Santander’s Kostka-Jesuit School use an original method based on the Internet to improve their learning and make it more entertaining.
27/01/2006
Education keeping up with the times. This year, the students at Santander’s Kostka-Jesuit school have started to use an interactive teaching system based on the Internet. The primary objective of what is known as interactive pedagogy is to provide a tool with which to make learning more attractive for pupils while it makes teachers’ jobs easier. Over 35,000 pupils, 3,000 educators and 22,000 families from all over Spain are now using this interactive Internet-based teaching method.
The system, introduced by the Kostka School for all pupils from pre-school to secondary education, is not only a teaching aid but also helps to involve families in their children’s development and the centre’s daily activities.
The tool is a comprehensive solution comprising a school platform or intranet which has been adapted to the centre’s needs and provides secure, controlled around-the-clock access from any Internet connection.
This educational innovation enhances the quality of school management and communications, and this is clearly perceived by pupils, teachers and parents, especially in relation to learning. They have all been provided with individual usernames and passwords with which to access the platform.
They find that it provides a series of tools, materials and multimedia content which both enhance and simplify communications, school management and the teaching process.
New resources
According to Fátima Lastra, the Kostka School’s headmistress, “the intranet provides us with a varied range of options enabling us to create the interactive platform that our pupils needed. It not only houses encyclopaedias and other fact tools, but enables our teachers to provide pupils with the resources they have created, integrating multimedia syllabus content, photos and video resources and so on, adapted to each class’s rate of development”.
”This content”, she adds, “provides all the resources available to reinforce the teaching process while paying more attention to student diversity. In turn, our pupils see working with new technologies not only as a game but as a regular part of school life”.
Pupils immediately accept the tool, which greatly enhances their motivation to learn, both at school and elsewhere.
Notes, homework
Teachers and students alike confirm the utility of these resources to support the teaching process with multimedia explanatory materials on all subjects, note publishing and drafting, working materials, the creation of dynamic groups working under a teacher or tutor’s supervision, teacher groups, etc. It also provides the opportunity to complete exercises, take tests or do homework on a computer, either at school or at home, sending them to the teacher’s mailbox where they are immediately corrected and marked.
The platform’s design also enables communication with other Jesuit Schools in Spain, and there is a project aimed at establishing an institutional network to help teachers who are now physically dispersed to get together to create their own educational materials.