Texas school district embarks on widespread iPad giveaway_美文

Texas school district embarks on widespread iPad giveaway

A small group of teachers in the district began preparing more than a year ago to incorporate the devices into their lessons. Recently, more instructors have started studying the devices. Teachers already training will see their students receive the first wave of devices.

About two-thirds of McAllen students were characterized as economically disadvantaged in 2010. The median household income in McAllen, a city on the US-Mexico border near the southern tip of Texas, was about $41,000 in 2010.

School board President Sam Saldivar said the $20.5 million investment in the technology is aimed at "equity."

"We know that when they do achieve and are successful, they are going to be generationally impacting their families and this community," Saldivar said.

Stacey Banks, a social studies teacher at McAllen Memorial High School, helped the district shape its program. She said textbooks for her class were 12 years old and she hadn't used them in the past five years, choosing to cobble together her own lessons instead with hopes of collaborating with colleagues to build electronic textbooks.

"It's given us a great opportunity to hone our skills as teachers and change our paradigm a little bit about what our classrooms look like and how we approach learning," Banks said of the iPads program. "That excitement has definitely migrated to the kids."

Sophomores in her class pulled up art images on Monday on their iPads. Banks asked them to find out how changes taking place during the Renaissance were demonstrated in art from the period.