Inspiring Learning at Remigen-Mönthal School

The original situation at the school, with two kindergarten sections and six primary school sections, was similar to what many educational institutions struggle with on a daily basis. The IT was getting on in years, the infrastructure was not up to new solutions. There were only a few, non-uniform devices with Windows operating systems, booting up and logging on to the local server took a lot of time. But the Remigen-Mönthal school wanted to change this under the direction of a working group consisting of the school administration, the school management, teachers and the municipal council as the sponsor.

Diverse IT requirements

Teachers and the community favoured modern, intuitive notebooks and a working environment that would still allow them to use the software LehrerOffice. In order for them to immediately find their way around the new environment, they wanted comprehensible training. In order to be able to concentrate fully on teaching, an external specialist was to take over necessary maintenance work. "We were looking for a solution with optimally coordinated hardware and software that would keep costs permanently low," explained local councillor Dieter Läuchli. Due to his experience as Head of Hardware Engineering at SIUS, manufacturer of electronic hit displays, and his interest in technology, he supported the working group with his know-how.

The path to the Google solution

The members of the working group elicited offers from various service providers - both Windows-based and ChromeOS-based. In this process, they compared the costs for the required services. Google was able to score with a more favourable price. "However, we were convinced by the simplicity, for example when setting up the notebooks. We were of the opinion that because of this, further work would also be cheaper," reported Dieter Läuchli, who in the meantime looked back on many years of positive experience with Google Workspace at SIUS and considered this to be a sensible step for the school.

The working group became aware of StackWorks through Google's partner list. The cloud partner from St. Gallen stood out from the other service providers with its holistic offer. This is because StackWorks takes care of the procurement of notebooks and tablets, the licences for Google Workspace for Education, the migration of the existing data to the Google Cloud and the set-up of the working environment. Together with Lutz Education, StackWorks provides training for the teachers. The project group concluded that the specialists know what teachers need. They also discovered the support packages, so StackWorks emerged as a provider that could offer all the desired services from a single source.

In addition, the project team was given a budget to calculate with right from the start. The framework agreement with Google concluded by the specialist agency Educa provided security that Google Workspace for Education could be used in a legally secure way. Thus, both the local councillors and the citizens voted in favour of the offer in early summer 2021 and awarded StackWorks the contract.

Trainings for the teachers

After the starting signal, new cables were laid in the school building and the infrastructure was renewed. StackWorks first developed a concept: "We made very good progress, the meetings were pleasant," recalls Dieter Läuchli. StackWorks took care of the procurement of a total of 95 Chromebooks and tablets for pupils, teachers as well as the lower school and prepared them for the use of Google Workspace for Education. They also set up Google Workspace for Education.

In addition, StackWorks integrated Lutz Education into the project. Business owner Michael Lutz led three training sessions covering the basics of working with the learning platform. During these sessions, the teachers took on both the roles of students and their own. Session 1 covered the setup and configuration of the Chromebook and TeacherOffice. Special attention was given to two-factor authentication. This was followed by training on the Drive, Gmail, and Calendar apps. The teachers learned how to move their old files and folders to the cloud and how to create, share, edit, and comment on new documents there. Pre-set bookmarks made it easier to find the apps and websites. A “Questions/Uncertainties” form provided an opportunity to note down issues that hadn’t worked out yet or to ask questions. These were addressed in the next workshop.

Session 2 covered Meet and Google Classroom, with a focus on data protection. Future courses and assignments were created in draft mode, and invitations were sent to students. Session 3 focused on a review of Google Classroom. In addition, the use case of distance learning was simulated. New additions included Flippity, Eduprotocols, and Anton. In addition to technical and practical details, participants placed a strong emphasis on pedagogy and methodology.

The different learning units were spread over several months so that the teachers could implement the tasks and try out new things. Questions were answered by email or discussed in the next session. Detailed course materials were provided for all sessions. These are still available in a Google Classroom course at the Remigen school.

In addition, a tutorial website with Google Sites was created, which provides links to the Google Workspace training and handed over to the ICT pedagogical officer. Tips and tricks can thus be integrated in the future.

Satisfied teachers, enthusiastic students

"Michael Lutz and Gábor Kertész took a pedagogical approach and had great patience. We felt very well looked after," said headmistress Anna Ferroukhi and clarified: "I found the work of Lutz Education and StackWorks symbiotic." She herself thought she would have more trouble getting used to working in the cloud. "But now I am almost only using the Chromebook," the headmistress confesses.

This meant that classes could start in the spring of 2022. For this purpose, the pupils' Chromebooks were distributed to the 5th and 6th classes. The 22 pupils in class 5 were the first to try out the new technology. It is used in the subjects media and IT, maths, German and NMG.