Rangi Ruru
Rangi Ruru
Rangi Ruru
Rangi Ruru is the only one of the many private girls’ schools established in Christchurch in the 19th century to
survive into the new millennium. The school provides a quality, independent educational environment for its
560 day and 120 boarding students “with excellence as the goal for every student.” And that includes a solid
technological education.
FirstClass facilities
The school has state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, including computer suites (with iMACS, PCs,
scanners and printers), video editing facilities, a graphics technology workshop and a library complex with a
highly sophisticated technology centre. It also has an intranet environment run by FirstClass Collaborative
Classroom Gold, an award-winning communication and collaboration software solution from Canadian-
based global developer Centrinity Inc. FirstClass is a one-stop online environment for messaging and
information sharing (multimedia-enriched email), time- and resource-management (calendaring) and
synchronous and asynchronous forums (chat and conferencing).
“Managing FirstClass has been a breeze.” Barry Baughan, Network Administrator, Rangi Ruru Girls’ School
Education
Distributed administration
Staff members have made FirstClass conferencing part of their working lives. Each area of the school intranet
is managed by a different member of staff, with students also being involved. FirstClass’ distributed
administration and self-service environment means reduced administration costs and low total cost of
ownership for the school.
Because FirstClass seamlessly integrates intranet and internet functionality, teachers are able to post URLs
directly in email messages and conferences to enable students to visit specific sites for educational purposes.
As information is added in the intranet, it can be effortlessly updated to the web, with no knowledge of
HTML. So the school has no need for a dedicated webmaster, and all members of Rangi Ruru’s educational
community can feel like they’re active participants in a dynamic online world.
Showcasing talent
The FirstClass Intranet, with its multimedia-enriched messaging, conferencing and file sharing features, can
also serve as a showcase for student talent. For example, in 1999, a team of Year 10, 12 and 13 students
began work on the production of an animated film. They have completed thousands of drawings and are
about to assemble them. The final product will be posted on the school’s FirstClass intranet for the whole
school community – or the entire world! – to see.
FIREWALKING, ANYONE?
Polling with FirstClass Rapid Application Developer (RAD)
QuickPoll is a FirstClass RAD that enables the creation of an online opinion poll, and makes it possible to view the results in graphic format. Rangi
Ruru uses QuickPoll for both staff and student opinion polls. Many of the issues that used to be voted on in staff meetings are now raised through
a poll.
Recently, students have been polled on everything from “Should there be a school bell between periods?” to "Will the principal do the
firewalking?"
QuickPoll is a free application developed by Michael Middlemiss, Centrinity's Customer Support Engineer for Australasia.
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