Located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, students, teachers and parents at the British School Al Khubairat (BSAK) has recently been exploring the possibilities of increasing IT in their teaching and learning, with exciting results. BSAK shows how introducing a Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), such as Fronter, is helping meet the educational needs of its children and connect the wider school community.
BSAK
Al Khubairat is a British curriculum school catering to students
from age three to eighteen.
BSAK was established in 1968 on land generously donated by the then ruler of Abu Dhabi, His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It now has nearly 1800 students, or more than 50 nationalities who benefit from the highest quality British education in a truly multi-cultural environment.
The Fronter school community at BSAK
Year Classrooms: One of the key elements in the successful
implementation and quick take off of Fronter at BSAK has been the
creation of the Rooms for each Year Group. The rooms contain
thematic Learning Zones: Learning and Organisational Toolkits
(containing a blog), external and internal links, a calendar, and
notes; and icons for entry into different content learning Rooms.
There is even an area in each Room for students to support each
other in their achievements.
Currently Year 6 is learning in the blended Fronter environment. Year 5 and Year 4 are due to incorporate the use of Fronter into daily lessons, followed shortly by Year 3 and Year 2.
BSAK Fronter Users
Learners log in to Fronter and have access to certain rooms
depending on their age, class and level. Some of the rooms that
they can access are: Year Group Rooms which are colour-coded by
house name and which contain information about lessons or allow
students to download and upload assignments, photo galleries of
students, staff, clubs and sporting events.
Parents will be able to use Fronter to access relevant information about their children, school information, and newsletters according to when their child's year group comes online.
Teachers have a private Staff Room where important information is shared. Access to this room is customised so that information is kept confidential.
All the teachers and students keep asking
when they will be allowed to use Fronter in their own classes.
Dan Batson, ICT Coordinator
British School Al Khubairat