Northwest Catholic Recipient of John G. Martin Foundation Grant

Northwest Catholic is the recipient of a three-year grant from the John G. Martin Foundation for technology upgrades throughout the school. The gift in total is $150,000.

The inspiration for this project was to create a modern, flexible classroom technology template so that every teacher or guest instructor can have the same instructional experience throughout the building.

In the first year of the grant, Northwest Catholic outfitted ten classrooms with current projection and audio equipment to allow any teacher to provide interactive instruction using educational software as well as a variety of technological hardware, including iPads, Apple TVs, and convertible tablet laptops.

Prior to the 2018 renovations, classrooms had different types of outdated display technologies, including multiple versions of SmartBoards or aging standard projectors and non-standard connection docks using outdated inputs. Some rooms had faulty audio speakers and projection bulbs that required replacement.

Thanks to the Martin Foundation grant, each Northwest Catholic classroom now has a ceiling mounted, front facing, high definition Epson Powerlite projector along with a newly mounted Da-Lite 50-inch by 80-inch screen. The screens are mounted in the center of the rooms and project onto whiteboards. The projection image is now aligned with the bottom edge of each whiteboard so that a teacher may project onto a whiteboard and write on top of the image, or use the screen and not lose valuable whiteboard space. Two JBL Pro ceiling speakers were also installed with a corresponding amplifier to provide clear audio transmission.

Following a 2017 pilot program of five classrooms, the teacher feedback was consistently positive and the intended educational outcome was achieved. Therefore, Northwest Catholic applied for the Martin Foundation grant so that the school could outfit the remaining thirty classrooms over the course of a three year period from 2018-2020.

Teacher and student feedback remains positive and affirms the school’s goal of creating instructional space that allows for ease-of-use that is not disruptive to the teaching process, and for students and teachers to make use of the hardware through their devices and corresponding software. Use of the technology is not discipline-specific. In other words, teachers in different subject areas, as well as teachers who travel throughout the building, are making good use of the upgrades.

Parallel to this classroom project, Northwest Catholic has been outfitting all teachers with convertible laptop tablets to move away from desktop computers and static machines required for projection. The new projectors have wireless projection capability to any device through a connection dongle. In addition, Northwest Catholic supplies Apple TVs mounted on top of each projector so that all students may wirelessly project through their iPads as part of the school’s 1:1 iPad program.

The new projection classroom template has created the flexibility for anyone to mirror or project their device through many different means. Also, because of these upgrades, teachers are using interactive educational software much more easily and effectively. Some examples of this software are Geogebra, Kahoot, .PDF Annotator, Apple Classroom, iBooks, Kindle, Explain Everything, and Showbie.

The school invested professional development funds into providing teacher licenses for Showbie, which is a web- and app-based program that allows for real-time interaction between students and teachers. The grant funded a one-semester pilot program for the entire faculty followed by a one-year subscription for those teachers who found the program most useful in their classrooms.

Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford is a diverse, Catholic, co-ed, college preparatory community, educating the whole person — mind, body, spirit, and imagination since 1961. Learn more at northwestcatholic.org.