Case Study: International Academy

The International Academy of Bloomfield Hills, MI has quite a reputation to maintain.  It features at the top of the list in U.S. News’ “America’s Best High Schools,” with 95.3% of the student body receiving their International Baccalaureate diploma after four years.

Integral to the school’s success is the use of technology to immerse the students deeply in the learning process.  Integral to the school’s use of technology is PBworks Campus Edition, which has led to a 90% increase in productivity among students according to Mary Miner, Technology Coordinator at The IA.

It began with music

The IA first used the free version of PBworks for a project about music.  A teacher wanted to reserve the computer room so that his students could research music from around the world.  The idea was to turn what they found into informative posters that they would present.  That’s when Miner suggested changing the deliverable to a student-authored workspace page.  Since they were already gathering digital information, why not create a digital deliverable?

The students loved the idea, and ended up creating a site that far exceeded the expectations of both the teacher and Miner.  Two years later, the seminal project is still available (with a few broken links due to age) at http://iaworldmusic.pbworks.com.

Wider adoption

Following the spectacular success of the world music project, Miner took steps to get the rest of the school on board with PBworks.  She organized an online, staff-authored recipe book to show the rest of the school community just how easy (and fun) it can be.  The result?  The staff got into it almost as much as the students did.

Since then PBworks has become a normal part of student and faculty life at The IA -- so much so that the school uses it as the portal for student and faculty communication and collaboration.  If you want to see a great example of how a well-organized workspace can benefit your school, check out what The IA is doing at http://iatoday.pbworks.com.

Fostering accountability; encouraging creativity

One of the benefits of using PBworks for assignments is that allows teachers to keep better track of each student’s work.  No more excuses of, "my flash drive is broken" or, "I can’t open the attachment I emailed to myself."  With PBworks, everything is right there on the site.  "All those old issues are gone when you’re working in the cloud," said Miner.

At the same time, teachers have found that they can leave their assignments more open-ended than before.  High school students today, especially those at The IA, are very technologically savvy.  "Our students are highly driven and very competitive," said Miner.  "Asking them to create specific types of output limits them."

When given the chance, nearly every student will surprise you with how capable they are.  PBworks simply allows them to show it.