It goes without saying that the children of today have been born into a world of technology that was unimagined when their parents were in school. The use of these tools in school should be a natural and integral part of any student’s day.

At The Harbour School, students from Kindergarten through Year 7 use computers throughout the day in a myriad of different subjects and manners – from drill-and-practice games or races that develop automaticity and content knowledge (such as Fasttmath, Mathletics, or topic-specific flashcards or games created by their teachers) to research (using such tools as Nettrekker or Google Earth), skill or content- teaching programs (such as Neighborhood MapMachine, Science Court or Decisions, Decisions: Revolution!), presentation skills (such as creating a document, movie, powerpoint or website) or communication and collaboration through the school’s intranet.

Children from P4 and above work with their own individual laptops, and are introduced to laptop use through our Tools not Toys curriculum. Students progress through a number of stages, ultimately earning a “computer license” which allows them to take their computers home. The goal of this curriculum is to teach the children responsible and safe use of computers and the internet, something we feel reasonably certain will be important to them throughout their lives.

Because technology is not separate from children’s lives, it should not be separate from their education and should not be taught as a separate class. At THS, technology is used throughout the curriculum as needed for the acquisition, practice, research, discussion or presentation of knowledge or opinion.