.png)
Being an educator in the age of technology can be both exciting and overwhelming. There are more tools, platforms, and possibilities than ever, yet figuring out which ones will make a difference to pedagogy is a challenge of its own.
For Aoba International Education, that question became particularly important when they set out to pilot their first fully online IB campus. As one of a small number of organizations worldwide selected to pilot an online IB program, Aoba was taking on something ambitious.
Aoba knew the launch would be experimental and, in their own words, “intentionally messy.” There would be new processes to establish, new ways of teaching to explore, and plenty more to figure out along the way. They needed technology that could keep up as they worked out what an online IB experience could look like in practice.
That technology was, and still is, Pencil Spaces.
Piloting a fully online IB campus
Aoba launched its online IB pilot on Pencil Spaces, using the virtual classroom platform to deliver its full program. Students and teachers use it to join live lessons, work together in breakout rooms, and move between activities as part of Aoba’s constructivist, team-based approach to learning.
Breakout rooms are particularly central to the way Aoba teaches. Station rotation and multi-board workflows are part of everyday classroom practice, giving students a means to collaborate, investigate, and work together in small groups.
For Aoba, bringing that kind of teaching online meant finding ways to preserve the collaboration and movement that made their in-person approach work so well. The technology had to accommodate the way they wanted to teach, rather than forcing them into a simpler version of the classroom.
To say there was a lot to figure out would be putting it lightly. In Aoba’s own words, the launch itself was intentionally messy. They had to establish new processes, experiment with new approaches, all while trying to get an entirely online campus off the ground.
Through all of that, Pencil Spaces was one thing they could rely on. Chasen Stahl, Director of Innovation at Aoba, puts it simply: “Pencil was a rock,” and the platform “just worked.” This gave the school one less thing to worry about while they navigated the chaos of launching an online program.
Powered by Pencil Spaces
As Aoba’s online campus has grown, Pencil Spaces has become an integral part of how the school teaches, collaborates, and keeps track of what happens inside its classrooms.
One example is the way Aoba handles lesson content. Rather than having students’ work spread across different platforms, all their learning materials and classroom activities live within their Spaces. Students can return to their work whenever they need to, while teachers and staff have a continuous record of what has happened in their classrooms.
The platform’s engagement analytics have become an important part of Aoba’s approach, too. Teachers already use data around attendance, participation, and talk-time to understand what is happening during lessons. Bringing that information together has opened up another possibility: asking questions of the data itself.
For Chasen, this ability to unify information gives Aoba a view of teaching and learning that is “uniquely powerful.” “Most schools don’t have that ability,” he says.
Aoba is now looking at how these insights can contribute to a more complete picture of teaching and learning over time, instead of relying on isolated data points from individual lessons. That includes the development of longitudinal Teaching Profiles and corresponding student-side analytics.
For Chasen, this direction is unusual in education technology. “I’m not aware of any product doing that,” he notes.
The bottom line
Aoba set out to do something that very few schools have attempted: build a fully online IB campus from the ground up.
The result has involved experimentation, collaboration and, naturally, a fair amount of messiness. That was part of the point. Aoba was trying to work out what online IB education could look like. There was no established model to follow, so they had to blaze their own path.
Through it all, Pencil Spaces has given the school a place to teach, collaborate, and experiment. From breakout-based inquiry and multi-board activities to using classroom data in new ways, the platform has grown alongside the way Aoba teaches. And we’re so proud to be along for the ride.
Curious what you could build with Pencil Spaces? Whether you’re running a tutoring business, an online school, or experimenting with a new way to teach, Pencil Spaces gives you the tools to bring your ideas to life. Try Pencil Spaces for free today, or book a personalized demo to learn more about how we can support your business.
