Concordia International School Shanghai's Macusing middle school students got a chance to strut their Mac-maneuvering skills at a Mac media press tour of their campus in Jinqiao, Pudong recently.
The nine visiting journalists toured classrooms, giving them an opportunity to speak firsthand to students and teachers about their Apple Mac experiences. Students shared work they had produced using their Macs and spoke about their own personal experiences.
"Inspire - that's what Macs are built for," enthused one grade seven student, Brenden Finnerty, referencing Concordia's annual theme - "Inspire." The group was able to see how grade eight teacher Michael Lambert and grade seven teacher David Larson, in particular, have encouraged much diverse usage of the Macs in the classroom - especially through their in-depth involvement in Shanghai's recent inaugural Student Film Festival (www.shanghaifilmfest.org/) at which Concordia students took home six out of the top 28 prizes awarded across the 150 entrants submitted from the three participating Shanghai international schools. This was a high achievement for Concordia, which started its transition from a Windows-based academic environment to a Mac-based one only in the 2007-08 school year.
The choice to move from Windows machines to Macs was inevitable, according to Concordia's director of technology, Michael Weber, who was invited to attend an Apple educator's conference in the United States in 2006. Weber saw that Apple was doing a far better job in so many areas - especially in supporting the education sector - and proposed the transition soon after his return.
Mark Lewis, middle school principal, assisted in translation by head of school secretary Tanya Wu, led the media group in a Q&A session. Lewis, who hosted the media event in cooperation with marketing and product representatives from Apple, has been impressed with what Concordia's first year of Mac usage has brought to his classrooms.
"Students have been creating numerous works themselves like iBooks, iMovies, keynote presentations," Lewis said.
Source: Shanghai Daily
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