Building a Strong Foundation for Digital Learning

Foundations for the Future Charter Academy (FFCA) has had a long-standing reputation for academic leadership. Today, it operates eight campuses within the city of Calgary, including 4 elementary, 2 middle and 2 high schools. Technology innovation has played an integral role for FFCA in both student development and academic success.

“Our results are consistently above the provincial average,” says Jeff Cullen, Director of Technology for Foundations for the Future Charter Academy. He attributes part of that success to the school’s investments in the latest visual learning technology for its eight campuses, all of which are now equipped with the ViewSonic myViewBoard digital learning platform.

Replacing outdated visual learning technology

FFCA’s recently completed a major technology upgrade which included the replacement of outdated visual technology and equipment, including 15-year-old projector/SMART Board systems. Image brightness was difficult to achieve in various classroom settings, and maintenance costs and licensing fees were high. The systems also required a lot of manual calibration which was difficult and time consuming for the IT team to manage. “If the walls weren’t completely straight, they didn’t work,” says Cullen.  

The search for replacement technology began immediately after a ceiling had collapsed at its North Calgary campus building and students had to be relocated to a remote building in the south end of the city. The decision to deploy ViewSonic ViewBoard interactive flat panels for the temporary building was an easy one for FFCA because of the cost savings from easier maintenance along with robust remote management features. “We settled on ViewSonic and moved the ViewBoards into the new high school as quickly as we could because we had only a few days to get everything done. The set up was easy and given the success of that installation, we chose ViewSonic as the established standard for all of our campuses moving forward,” says Cullen. 

Seamless transition from older to new digital learning technology

Changing classroom learning technologies can create resistance on the part of teachers, Cullen notes. “For teachers, their classrooms are their offices. That’s where they work and live each day.”

But that wasn’t the case with the myViewBoard ecosystem, he adds. “When the first ViewBoards were installed, the teachers dove into the software, and many have begun to transition their SMART Board Notebook files over to the new myViewBoard Whiteboard platform.”

In the summer of 2022, FFCA’s team completed the replacement of all its SMART systems with 170 ViewBoards. Moving from the older SMART Boards has delivered considerable advantages for the schools, from easy maintenance, to portability, to remote management and wireless casting.

“We don’t have to worry about alignment and bulb replacement anymore, and we don’t have to pay licensing fees. We also have much more flexibility because the myViewBoard software allows for wireless casting and screen sharing,” says Cullen.

A key feature for Cullen is remote device management capabilities. “With myViewBoard Manager, I can centrally manage our entire network. I can see everything across the network and push out updates remotely. This has solved a lot of issues for us.”

As teachers work with myViewBoard, Cullen reports that the uptake ranges from straightforward whiteboard functions to more advanced digital learning applications. “For example, at the elementary school level there was lot of excitement over the integrated reader and translation software and how easy it is to use in teaching phonics and literacy. Elementary teachers are usually the hardest to impress. But when we showed them these new software features, there were ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’.”

Innovating for the future

FFCA also plans to install another 40 ViewBoards in one of its newest campuses which is scheduled to open in North Calgary in the Spring of 2024. With this school, Cullen says they are taking technology innovation a step further. “We plan to take a very mobile approach for our computer and learning labs, and are working with the idea of using a virtual approach. For this campus, most of the ViewSonic ViewBoards will be all mounted on mobile carts.”

Over his 13 years at FFCA, Cullen says he has overseen three technology refreshes. “The upgrade to ViewSonic is our most recent, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. Teacher adoption and student engagement is high, and the future looks very bright.”

To learn more about ViewSonic’s comprehensive ecosystem for education, visit ViewSonic.com or contact Mike Atkinson: mike.atkinson@viewsonic.com.