Toowoomba Grammar School is fortunate to have a strong partnership with Microsoft / School Locker. We are a Microsoft Lighthouse School, leading the way in technological advancement and deployment in Australian schools. This recognition would not be possible without two key factors:
- our “whole school” approach to IT, whereby the School supplies every student with the same devices, ensuring equality for all boys from Prep to Year 12.
- our dedicated IT team, who are based on-site to immediately assist with any IT issues our staff and students encounter.
Microsoft is so impressed with Toowoomba Grammar School’s roll out and support program that they invited our AV, Data Assurance and ICT Engineer, Mr Matthew Dalamaras to be a guest speaker at the recent Association of Independent Schools NSW Information and Communication Technology Management and Leadership Conference.
Matthew was asked to present during the workshop “Finding the limits of deployment solutions”. He addressed over 350 IT professionals from independent schools across Australia about “The View from the Other Side”.
Matthew provided an insight into the challenges and successes of the TGS journey into modern device deployment using Microsoft Intune. He described how the School’s device rollout has changed over the years, culminating in our ability to provide services like our “drive-through” laptop collection, and an average of a five-minute turnaround for issues with student devices.
“Over the last 15 years, computer deployment has evolved from what was a copy/paste of a whole computer to devices that now connect to the internet and self-build, based on instructions provided by IT,” Matthew told the conference.
“The amount of time required to write these instructions is dramatically lower than creating the “Gold Image” which you would copy onto every device.”
Matthew said another significant change is the ability for IT departments to manage devices when students and staff are working or learning offsite, due to its connectivity to the internet. This was not possible using older methods.
This is an emerging technology, with massive benefits in resourcing and time recovery. Toowoomba Grammar School is fortunate to have expertise in this field as it ensures that our staff and students will always have up-to-date, secure and reliable devices. TGS is leading the way with IT in education.
“Other schools are at varied levels of implementing this technology and experts in this field are far and few between, especially in education,” said Matthew.
As a result, he was highly sought after for consultation during the conference and Microsoft has engaged Matthew to discuss how we manage devices at TGS and our Surface Program, giving further national recognition to the School’s IT program.
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