SMA Santa Ursula is an all-girls Catholic high school based in Jakarta, Indonesia. It has a rich history that dates as far back as the early 1900s. Although their core mission—to develop graduates who work towards a more just and humane society—remains unchanged, their objectives have undergone several updates. One of these new goals is to equip their students with 21^st century skills, and they accomplish this through the adoption of new classroom technologies.

“Using technology for education is absolutely necessary in this age,” explains the school’s headmaster, mononymously referred to as Sumardi. He says, “The challenges our students are facing are much more developed. We need to help them master using technology so they can better adapt to new industry needs.”

The school administration already had plans to convert their existing rooms into state-of-the-art smart classrooms. They were looking to acquire new teaching equipment that would allow them to facilitate blended learning activities. But during the initial stages of the procurement process, the pandemic occurred, and the Indonesian government pushed for policies that directly affected how schools were supposed to operate.

“It presented a challenge to us,” says Sumardi. “The government wanted schools to shift to distance learning. It was all for the sake of keeping everyone safe.”

This national directive became the key consideration driving their search. Their new education technology solution not only needed to be functional for in-person classes, it also needed to work in distance learning setups.

“We found the smart solutions offered by BenQ very attractive,” says Sumardi, noting how both the hardware and software specifications of the BenQ Board Pro were more than adequate to meet their blended learning needs.

Its large 4K UHD screen and touchscreen interface make it easy for students to do activities on the board. Applications like EZWrite and InstaShare give teachers all the tools they need for more flexible and creative lessons. Sumardi even notes how they favor using AMS, BenQ’s cloud-based account management system. “It makes it easy for teachers to manage and load their lesson materials,” he explains.

Given their distance learning requirement, the school’s biggest draw to the BenQ Board Pro is how it offers multiple ways for them to implement their preferred distance learning setup. After discussing different options with BenQ, the SMA Santa Ursula staff finally deemed that they had found their ideal arrangement: Teachers could start their lessons on EZWrite, wirelessly cast their BenQ Board screen to their laptop using InstaShare, and then share this screen to remote students on a video call. With this setup, teachers can whiteboard naturally while allowing their home-based students to follow their lecture in real time.

Since adopting BenQ Boards, classes at the SMA Santa Ursula have significantly improved.

“With BenQ Boards, distance learning has become more interesting, effective, and meaningful,” says Sumardi, who attributes the improvements to both their new boards and the intensive training sessions that BenQ provided. “BenQ was very involved from the [installation of the boards] to the training,” he says, “They trained the IT staff and all the teachers from all levels.”

Maria Venentia Mayela, the school’s deputy head for infrastructure and facilities, says that in case they ever need to shift to distance learning again in the future, they would have no trouble transitioning. “The BenQ Board is very easy to use. We have more options for distance learning.”

“Now, we have smart classrooms with the BenQ Boards,” says Sumardi, “We are ready for blended learning. We are aligned with the government health protocols.” With BenQ Boards in their classrooms, the headmaster is confident that SMA Santa Ursula can fulfill their original goal of boosting their students’ 21^st century skills while also making their classes resilient in the face of possible disruptions to regular schooling.