John Lieverse presents Cynthia Matthews with the cheque to buy new education technology for Swanavon school (photo courtesy of the Grande Prairie Public School Division)

By Liam Verster

$14,870 grant

Swanavon School to buy new education enhancing tech with CNRL grant

Dec 7, 2020 | 5:00 AM

Swanavon School in Grande Prairie has been awarded a $14,870 grant from Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), which will be used to buy new education enhancing technology and equipment to improve both online and in-class learning.

Cynthia Matthews, the principal of Swanavon School, found out that CNRL provides grants to community groups, organizations and schools, and applied for some funds. Then, on Thursday, December 3, Swanavon was declared the recipient of the grant, and a cheque was delivered to the school.

“On behalf of Swanavon Staff, students and their families, thank you to Canadian Natural for the generous donation to our small community school,” says Matthews in a release.

“This money will have an enormous impact on our students as they will be able to use technology to support their learning when completing projects. We are very grateful and excited for the many learning opportunities our students will now have due to the financial assistance from Canadian Natural!”

The money will be used to purchase 10 iPads, 6 document cameras, and Literacy Intervention resources.

Sandy MacDonald, Superintendent of the Grande Prairie Public School Division, says he’s most enthused by the Literacy Intervention resources, which he describes as a selection of tools and resources that teachers can use to help bring a student’s reading up to their grade level.

In the case of Swanavon school, the kit would have resources geared towards bringing a students reading up to the Third Grade level.

“The books are lower reading level than grade level, but they’re highly engaging, highly interesting, they’re relevant and motivating for the students to use,” says MacDonald. “And they will work with them in small groups with their teacher in short intensive intervention to improve their reading.”

He adds the ability to provide specialized resources is really important, especially when it comes to reading, as not all kids learn to read at the same pace.

The document cameras being purchased can be used for projecting to a group or converting to digital form written pages and passages or illustrations and maps from books. With these new cameras, teachers will be able to highlight specific parts of a document when explaining the lessons to both in-person and online classes. Students will also be able to use these cameras during in-class presentations.

The iPads, meanwhile, will have software used for creative storytelling opportunities through iMovie and Stop Animation. This software is already installed on the school’s existing laptops and iPads.

MacDonald says having these technologies allows students to create work that are unique and creative, while still following the classic storytelling curriculum.

“With this tablet technology, it gives us another opportunity to allow students to engage in the same type of planning to tell a story: what’s the content, who are the characters, what do I want the story to be?

“But then they can use applications like iMovie for the iPad, or they can use stop motion animation where you connect different pictures into a little frame-by-frame movie, and they can use that technology to tell their story. And it gives us another opportunity to allow students to find their voice, in a way that’s different from the traditional.”

He says that the software is fairly intuitive and easy to learn, adding that most kids have access to these sorts of devices at home and are already adept at using them.

John Lieverse, Superintendent of CNRL also adds that, “At Canadian Natural, we are committed to working with the community of Grande Prairie to support education opportunities that give today’s youth the tools needed for a successful future.”