Al Diyafah High School was
founded in September 1982 by Mrs Winnie D’Cunha. It started as a nursery with
only two children in a small villa located at Diyafah Street, Satwa, Dubai - that’s
how it got its name. The founder’s main objective was to draw out the best
in each child’s spirit, mind and body. Today, the school has children from
Nursery to Year 11. The school has science laboratories, a computer laboratory,
an audio-visual room, arts and crafts room, a music room, tennis facilities, basketball
courts and other facilities to enrich both physical and mental activity.
Embracing the 21st century classroom
Al Diyafah High School is one of the oldest schools in Dubai, and it proudly proclaims
a commitment to excellence. Over the last three years, the school has exhibited
a major change in its attitude toward embracing new technology for use in the educational
field. They have invested in teaching resources such as multimedia projectors, interactive
boards and learning response systems. When the school heard they would have the
opportunity to try the
AVerVision visualizer (document
camera), they could not wait to start using the equipment; and, being
no strangers to technology, the teachers and students took to the equipment straightaway.
Science projects come to life with the VP-1
In one class, the children had a lesson on skeletal systems that started with a
typical classroom discussion on vertebrates and invertebrates. The children were
busy writing points of comparison and differences in their notebooks, when suddenly
one of their models was shown on the interactive board via an AVerVision visualizer (document camera). In
an instant, there was a rush of students to the front of the class, all wanting
to adjust the image and use the function keys of the
VP-1. They froze the image, changed the brightness, zoomed in and out, etc.;
it was amazing to see how easy it was for the children to operate the VP-1, and to see the joy
they received from using it in class. At a later point in the lesson, they connected
the visualizer (document
camera) to a laptop and found they were able to switch between camera and
PC inputs with ease.
The VP-1 is an all-around hit
It was a novel experience for the children to see their own work projected in class
via the visualizer (document
camera), commented one observer. Arafat, a student whose project was shown
to the class during the skeletal system lesson, was absolutely thrilled by the experience,
going as far as to call the
VP-1 “a cool gadget!” As for the teachers, they particularly
liked the zoom and freeze features found on the
VP-1.
Ms. Radha, the head of the primary school commented that in addition to the
visualizer's (document camera's) usefulness
in displaying students’ everyday work, the
VP-1 could also be very useful during demonstrations in science classes.
In the end, it seemed as though Al Diyafah High School was quite pleased with their
experience using the
VP-1 from AVer, making reference to the belief that in order to properly
prepare today’s schoolchildren for the future, classrooms need to be equipped
with the latest educational tools, like
AVerVision visualizers (document
cameras).
“It was a very enlightening and enriching experience using the visualizer,
and it is a good collaboration between the teacher and the students.”
- Ms. Lakshmi, Teacher, Al Diyafah High School
AVer would like to thank Al Diyafah High School and ALMOE Digital Solutions L.L.C
for providing this case study.