All Hallows’ School Case Study
format_quote format_quoteWith 1500 girls, each studying seven subjects, there’s a significant volume of data, and the provisioning of texts has been seamless. Box of Books has had overwhelming acceptance among the school community.
With the change in curriculum in Queensland for years 11 and 12, we have sharpened our focus yet again on how we provide services to students. We have a digital, cloud-first strategy – this includes digital content, feedback and online learning. Our learning management system has been in place since 2003, and students carry Microsoft Surface devices with Microsoft Office 365 and OneNote as the main tools. We have a very tightly integrated and well-defined toolset and we couldn’t continue to deliver tex tbooks in paper copy, it’s just not cost effective. Our focus has shifted to providing digital textbooks, digital worksheets and other digital content and resources.
The biggest challenge to implementing digital resources was the integration with school systems. As John noted, “The success criteria came down to one thing: how well that platform integrates with our current services. This is critical because we don’t want a management overhead. If a girl changes her subject, we need the book in that girl’s hand right away. We trialled all three major platforms. I asked the question: can I pass you a set of data using an industry standard authentication protocol and can you read that and populate your system with it? I’ll be brutal and say the systems offered by others with csv uploads don’t cut it in the modern day world.”
format_quote format_quoteWe have a very tightly integrated and well-defined toolset and we couldn’t continue to deliver textbooks in paper copy, it’s just not cost effective. Our focus has shifted to providing digital textbooks, digital worksheets and other digital content and resources.
The Box of Book trial helped All Hallows’ make the decision to go with a full school rollout: “We had discussions with Box of Books’ CTO Geoff Bowers, and he showed how the data would be handled and books provision ed dynamically. Geoff demonstrated with our data exactly what was possible. Other platforms could not show or provide that level of access.”
“With 1500 girls, each studying seven subjects, there’s a significant volume of data, and the provisioning of texts has been seamless. Box of Books has had overwhelming acceptance among the school community. The girls appreciate they don’t have to carry as many books. More kids are using online versions of textbooks, where there are clear advantages over physical. Our Head of Digital Pedagogy is working on defining how this is reflected in teaching methods.”
format_quote format_quoteWe trialled all three major platforms. I’ll be brutal and say the systems offered by others with CSV uploads don’t cut it in the modern day world.
We asked John what advice he would you give to other schools considering Box of Books: “Do your research to see if the platform is going to meet your needs, particularly around data integration. There’s nothing more time consuming or disappointing than having to wait weeks at the start of Term 1 for a student to access a textbook. We value relationships strongly and don’t step away from them quickly. We look to build trust from both ends, and having quality support and clear lines of communication is critical to this.”
