Academic Technology
Groton brings a tradition of thoughtful innovation to teaching and learning with technology. Guided by teacher-defined goals for learning and instruction, the Information Technology Department supports student and faculty understanding and use of technology.
Students learn to fluently navigate digital workspaces and modern media as a natural facet of their overall academic experience.
Day-to-day use of collaborative tools—ranging from Google Workspace to discipline-specific tools such as ArcGIS or UX design applications—and critical engagement with a multitude of perspectives create authentic opportunities for growth and reflection. Throughout, students learn to use technology as one of many potential resources at their disposal, learning to balance the digital with the physical and relational under the guidance of faculty, coaches, advisors, and dorm heads.
Teachers guide students to opportunities to connect their classroom experience with technology to both the ever-changing issues of the modern world and the enduring mission and values of the school.
In the same classrooms where Latin and Greek are taught, where geometry and Shakespeare are studied, students also engage with questions of authorship and voice in the online world, the ramifications of LLMs not just in their lives, but in society, and the frontiers of data science and machine learning. The IT Department works closely with faculty to build thoughtful connections across the curriculum.
Each student receives a Mac laptop managed by the school.
This ensures that everyone has the same access, speed, and software needed for their learning and work, with intentional durability, reliability, and support from the day that students arrive on campus until Prize Day in Sixth Form. Students are provided with additional technology, ranging from iPads to cameras to scientific sensors as required in each discipline.
Teachers, coaches, and groups use our myGroton LMS as a hub with which to integrate collaboration, instruction, and learning tools appropriate to the needs of the discipline and the students.
Over the course of their time at Groton, students may learn in 中问, engage in an asynchronous discussion of moral ethics, peer edit creative writing, or collaborate over ecology datasets through myGroton. These integrations are supported by the IT Department in deep collaboration with teachers and students, responding to their individual, departmental, and communal needs.
Technology infrastructure is built into the campus, with ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage, presentation and conferencing technology available in all across classrooms in every discipline, athletic livestreams and across the Circle to support teaching and learning. This consistent level of access, combined with the ready availability of the IT Help Desk, ensures that students have the support they need to accomplish their academic work.
In addition to use in the classroom, students explore technology through extracurricular groups and independent study. Past projects have involved robotics, app development, video and broadcasting, sustainable energy initiatives, and data visualization.
"The fab lab is an opportunity for kids to get their hands dirty, to try things out, to be comfortable in an environment where they can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Over the years I've used the fab lab in my classes and with the robotics team, and I've worked with the art department on a couple different projects in there. All of those are great experiences for the students."
Bert Hall P'28, Science Faculty
Academic Technology
