“The Huntsville City School district is ditching textbooks and passing out laptops instead,” reported a Huntsville TV station. Huntsville Alabama is one of
many districts making the shift to digital learning this fall. Students from fourth to twelfth grade will receive laptops starting this week.
Many districts have been 1:1 for years including about a third of Iowa and South Dakota districts. The districts extend access to quality content, save
money on textbooks, use powerful diagnostic tools, and engage students.
Inspired by the student engagement and achievement spurred by the
1:1 program in Moorseville, North Carolina, Pearson’s Scott Drossos
developed a comprehensive service offering supporting school district migration to pervasive computing, high-access environments.
Tom Greaves of Project RED sums up
the benefits by noting that personalization holds the potential to unlocking higher levels of achievement and broader access to college and careers.
Personalization takes digital learning to a high-access environment, and that requires a robust infrastructure and a good plan.
Most districts simply don’t have the capacity to shift to digital learning without some help. It’s complicated to align standards, curriculum, technology,
and teacher support. That’s why Scott’s team developed Pearson’s 1:1 Learning Framework and the program management resources to support it. The
framework is based on four pillars:
1.
Planning and project management
from a dedicated 1:1 learning project expert, detailed project plan, and aligned district communications plan.
2.
Personalized learning environment
integrating digital curriculum, online assessment, progress monitoring, collaboration tools, mobile apps, and data analytics.
3.
Supporting change of practice
with tailored professional development to help teachers make the shift from traditional stand-and-deliver instruction to individualized instruction.
4.
Hardware and network infrastructure from a multitude of partners and device types
that deliver learning wherever students want it.
In addition to program management services, Pearson is offering a new digital Common Core State Standards curriculum. With program management help from
Pearson, Huntsville City Schools are making the shift--all at once! Superintendent Wardynski talks about the new digital conversion for HCS. It started last year with new wireless networks. Huntsville
is leasing loaded HP laptops for about $200 per year.
Pearson built a Huntsville digital curriculum site
that features
enVisionMATH
, Digits, and MyMathLab. ELA includes
Reading Street Common Core Edition, Prentice Hall Literature, and online assessment system WriteToLearn all
linked to the district’s collaboration system, EdModo.
Teacher support includes
Online
Learning
Exchange
, Teacher & Principal Compass, PD21, and online support. Staff webinars start this week and all 1600+ Huntsville teachers will get intensive personal
training next week at their summer workshop.
Huntsville and other high access districts will be prepared to administer online assessments in 2014. In the mean time, they will benefit from the power of
personal digital learning.
Also see:
A Lesson In Funding 1:1 Access From Spearfish, South Dakota
Why Three Districts Chose Chromebooks Over Tablets
Disclosure: Pearson is a Getting Smart Advocacy Partner.