Page 17 - Leadership Basics 5

There are many popular new technology systems available to schools for media‐space
communications. Consider the following examples of systems in place in many schools:

1. SMS messages ‐ At Casuarina Senior College, student attendance each lesson is scanned by
the teacher or tutor and if the student is absent, the media system automatically generates an
SMS mobile phone (cell phone) message that is sent to the student and at the same time to
the student’s parents or guardians.

2. Portal – Maris Stella Boys School, has an online ‘portal’, which all students can access through
their computer from anywhere in the world. This portal site includes; homework assignments,
teacher’s lesson notes, daily student notices, individual student messages, and a ‘drop‐box’ for
students to deposit their assignments. The school also has a ‘parent only’ portal which is
pass‐word protected to ensure confidential interactive communications with parents.

3. Global Messaging and Interactive Websites – The Australian School in a particular county
has an email messaging system through which the school’s weekly news update is
automatically sent to all parents. This email also provides ‘links’ and actively promotes the
school’s website which contains ‘interest group’ sites which are highly interactive (e.g. An
interest group site for parents of Gifted and Talented Students, another for the parents of Yr 8

students, another for Boys Education, etc, these sites are monitored and ‘managed’ by school
staff each day).

4. Wireless and Free – one community school provides a ‘wireless’ network access that is
‘transmitted’ from the school across an area that extends 2 klms from it’s the school. While

this does not sound like a great distance, it means in fact that the school is able to provide a
‘free’ wireless internet access to over 90% of its students who live in a housing estate
surrounding the community school. Essentially, students can take home their school laptop
computers and ‘log’ on to the school’s central server from their apartment’s living rooms
(some interference is experienced in enclosed rooms like inner bedrooms). As a result
students can work from their ‘P’ Drive (their ‘personal drive’ on the schools server) and can
upload and download such things as assignments, teacher’s lectures, homework and
information from the internet and intranet.

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