From McAllen ISD:
McAllen ISD Superintendent Dr. James Ponce was quoted in a national press conference Tuesday. Technology giant Apple Inc. used a testimonial statement from McAllen’s top educator as it unveiled its new iPad mini in San Jose, Calif.
Here is the quote used during a presentation by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“The iPad has been a real game changer in education. No technology has impacted the way teachers teach and students learn more quickly and more profoundly. With iPad, the possibilities are endless.”
--Dr. James Ponce, Superintendent, McAllen ISD
The district may be the largest school district in the nation to begin issuing mobile-learning devices to all students in kindergarten-12th grade (approximately 25,000). This move has earned the district notoriety in national wire services, national public radio, national networks, regional interest magazines, trade magazines and industry journals.
Most recently, McAllen ISD’s use of mobile-learning devices, part of an overall framework known as Transforming Learning in the Classroom, Campus and Community (TLC3), was the cover story in the debut issue of RGV Academic magazine. It will be featured again in the November issue of Kings, Queens and Scholars magazine.
McAllen ISD announced it was going to implement mobile-learning devices like the iPad2 and the iPod Touch into its learning environment in Oct. 2011. The school district began rolling out devices in Feb. 2012 and has since distributed nearly 6,000 devices to students.
The district is now on the cusp of distributing an additional 19,000 mobile-learning devices so that all students will be using them by the end of this fall.
A cadre of 140 teachers received devices and training in summer 2011 and used them with their students in 2011-12. The remaining 1,400 teachers in the district received their devices and training in May-August 2012.