ROYSE CITY —
More than 100 Royse City eighth grade science students will participate in a technology lending program soon, thanks to a $100,000 grant awarded recently to the Royse City Independent School District.
State grant funds will be used to purchase Intel Classmate Touch Netbooks for a teacher and approximately 115 students.
Director of Curriculum Janie Pope said the computers will be checked out like textbooks. Parents and students will be required to sign a user agreement.
Pope said this will be a pilot program that school officials are hopeful will be expanded.
She provided information about the program Monday night during a meeting of the Royse City Independent School District’s Board of Trustees.
“We really hope that this is just the beginning of showing how technology can be incorporated into the classroom, how we can begin to move forward and, hopefully, every year, once funding gets back where it needs to be, that we can begin to implement this more and more,” she said.
Superintendent Kevin Worthy mentioned during the meeting that technology in the classroom could be a topic during the school district’s upcoming strategic planning project.
“We are so excited about this opportunity, to the point where we really think this needs to come out in strategic planning, especially if we have a 21st Century learning strategy,” Worthy said.
“This is the start. We are not even scraping the surface. This is just a small piece of that, where we can go with a digital classroom. Our classrooms need to change across the district and across the State of Texas, they need to change. Hopefully, we’ll play a small role in that.”
The technology lending program was established by the 82nd Texas Legislature.
The grant program was created to award funds to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to implement or enhance an existing technology lending program to loan students the equipment necessary to access and use electronic instructional materials.
Pope said the science class was selected because it already has a digital form of curriculum.
The grant application stated why the science class was chosen for the program.
“The recent increase in high school graduation requirements in the area of science, along with a new accountability system, have placed greater responsibilities on the middle school to prepare students for the new rigorous high school curriculum and state testing,” the application stated.
Pope added in the application that the grant “will bring innovative technology to the eighth grade science classroom to aid teachers in teaching more effectively and relevantly to the students’ needs in the 21st Century learning environment.”
The application stated later that all students will have equal access to the content and the delivery of instruction.
“Students will be more engaged through the use of technology, leading to greater interest and success in upper level science classes,” according to the application.
The computers will be ordered soon. They will be issued to students after the teacher is trained in the use of the computers.
Local News
School district receives $100,000 for technology lending program
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