Orientierungsschule Region Murten (OSRM) is a secondary school in Murten, Switzerland that caters to 5^th and 6^th grade students from the region’s French and German communities. Although the school has two autonomous faculties—each with their own director—they still share the same facilities and meet the same high standards of learning.

Reto Fasnacht, deputy director at OSRM (German), says that, as educators, they want their graduates to be “fit for life”. He explains: “We want to prepare the students of the 21^st century for this world of mobility and interactivity.” In order to do this, the staff at OSRM adopted an active learning curriculum, which they support through the use of new educational technologies. The school aims to develop the skills their students need in order to thrive in the real world.

Projectors had taken a prominent spot at OSRM, being their go-to tool for lectures and presentations for decades. But after several years of wear and tear, it was finally time for the school to replace these old tools with newer, more interactive edtech solutions. After factoring in all the variables, the school staff had a very clear idea of what they needed and came up with three specific procurement criteria:

It was essential for their new solution to have the necessary features that teachers can use to facilitate lessons. But more importantly, according to Fasnacht, “It needed to be as simple as possible.” These devices had to be so easy to use that teachers didn’t waste time trying to figure out how to operate them.

“We use a lot of Apple devices,” says Fasnacht, explaining how OSRM has an existing macOS ecosystem. Their labs are fitted with several iMacs, and students are issued personal MacBooks for use in class. Whichever edtech solution the school went with needed to work seamlessly with these devices.

Their third and final criteria was related to IT management. “Since we’re installing 53 boards in a large school building, it’s important for us to have a central way to manage all these devices and user access within our network,” Fasnacht says.

OSRM’s directors already had very deep technical know-how and were very critical when it came to checking if different solutions were able to match their requirements. After their exhaustive deliberations, they selected the BenQ Board Pro as it met and exceeded all three of their criteria.

The BenQ Board has several easy-to-use teaching tools designed for hands-on learning. Among these is the feature-packed EZWrite whiteboard, which lets teachers and students write notes, import media, and use templates that help streamline classes and make them more engaging.

Its wireless screen sharing capabilities via InstaShare and its multiple input ports allow teachers and students to mirror or extend their MacBook screens to their BenQ Boards without requiring additional configurations.

All BenQ Boards and BenQ user accounts can be remotely managed via a single cloud console. This saves IT admins the time and effort normally required when configuring the settings for all their displays.

The transition was seamless. The BenQ Boards were simple to operate, compatible with macOS, and a breeze to manage. Fasnacht appreciates how the interactive displays were able to complement all their existing systems: “It’s about preserving what’s been tried and tested while enabling students to freely explore new possibilities.”

As the BenQ Boards made their way into each classroom, the teachers and their students were quickly able to adapt to its large touchscreen interface. Lessons became more hands-on. Teachers began incorporating more interactive content in class while their students got more eager to participate.

One of OSRM’s teachers, Marc Zuercher notes, “The board positively changes how they learn. It creates a lot of opportunities.”