Tag Archives: powerup

Phase 3 of PowerUp begins

Monday was an exciting first day of duty for teachers at DeBakey High School for Health Professions. They received their laptops in the third phase of HISD’s PowerUp initiative.

“I’m excited about how I’m going to use it in my classroom,” said math teacher Wilson Chavez. “Sometimes it’s difficult to implement technology in math, but I have exciting plans to use it for various projects.”

The teachers are currently receiving training on their laptops, including how to use web-based tools in their daily instruction through the HUB. Continue reading →

Yates HS students create video for PowerUp persuasion

Students at Yates High School are encouraging their classmates to join the digital revolution by creating a video touting the benefits of the district’s one-to-one initiative which provides every high school student with a laptop. Yates, and over a dozen other HISD high schools have distributed nearly 18,000 student laptops over the last five weeks. The distribution is part of the district’s digital transformation known as PowerUp.

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Digital learning in the spotlight for February

During the month of February, all HISD teachers are being encouraged to try something new in their classrooms, as well as share ideas, resources, and lessons learned by posting their experiences and photos on social media using the hashtag #HISDdigital. Each week during the month, we are profiling a teacher who is using technology to break up the rows in their classrooms, engage their students, and innovate their instructional practice. This week’s profile features Austin High School teacher George Caldwell.

Veteran social studies teacher George Caldwell admits that when he first heard about PowerUp, HISD’s districtwide digital transformation effort, he was a little nervous and scared.

“I wasn’t very comfortable using technology in my classroom, but I decided to grab a laptop cart and let my kids know that we were going to figure this out together. They use technology every day in their lives, and we as teachers need to meet them where they are.”

A year later, all of Caldwell’s students at Austin High School have their own laptops, and he is much more comfortable using technology in his daily instruction. He’s also embraced the PowerUp:HUB, HISD’s online teaching and learning platform, as a way to facilitate student discussion and collaboration in his classroom.

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Teachers can now use the HUB ‘Library’

As part of HISD’s transition to digital teaching and learning, the PowerUp:HUB is playing an increasingly central role. One key feature of the online teaching and learning platform is the HUB Library, which is designed to hold a comprehensive collection of “learning objects” for use as part of the teaching and learning process. Learning objects in the HUB Library can be anything from adopted instructional materials (i.e., HISD’s adopted digital textbooks) to activities and resources that teachers create and share. One unique feature of learning objects in the HUB Library is that they can be tagged with standards and keywords that allow teachers to search for just the resource they need. Continue reading →

Teachers using HUB to maximize instructional time

Social studies teacher Laura Baumgart had never used an online teaching and learning platform in her daily instruction before coming to work at HISD this school year. Now, the Austin High School educator is actively using the PowerUp:HUB, HISD’s digital platform, in her everyday instruction. Continue reading →

Student videos preparing classmates and teachers for 1:1 laptop initiative

Students at Davis High School are taking an active role in ensuring that their campus is ready this coming January to distribute laptops to all 1,700 of its students. To help with the one-to-one device deployment, the Davis audio/visual production class has made a series of videos for their classmates, as well as for their teachers.   Continue reading →

Packed house at PowerUp training with Mooresville, N.C., educators

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Nearly 150 teachers from across the district packed Carnegie High School on a recent Saturday to attend a half-day training with educators from the Mooresville Graded School District in Mooresville, North Carolina. HISD has partnered with Mooresville to help train and offer professional development to HISD high school teachers involved in PowerUp, the district’s digital transformation effort that includes distributing laptops to every high school student. Continue reading →

Westside teachers putting the HUB to the test

Students at Westside High School won’t be getting their PowerUp laptops until January, but that’s not stopping teachers on campus from using the PowerUp:HUB with their students.

With the help and encouragement of their campus instructional technologist, Westside teachers are starting to use the online teaching and learning platform for various instructional routines with their students including homework assignments and tests.

“Initially I had negative thoughts about the HUB, but now I like it because I and I am not so scared of it,” says Westside Advanced Placement World History Heather Barrow, who is using the HUB for homework assignments that she previously would have assigned to her students to do from a textbook. Continue reading →

Countdown to 2014-2015: What’s new in HISD #8 — Cybersafety website unveiled as part of PowerUp expansion

This is the third in a series of stories counting down to the start of school, spotlighting what is new in HISD in the coming year.

As 21 more HISD high schools gear up to become part of the PowerUp one-to-one laptop initiative in the 2014-2015 school year, HISD has unveiled a powerful new companion — an all-encompassing cybersafety website to make sure students’ cybercitizenship matches their technological knowledge.

Developed for use by students, parents, and educators at all grade levels, the new site offers updated and user-friendly information about safe and sensible use of the Internet and social media. The site, which includes content from Common Sense Media, features resource links, tip sheets, videos, learning resources, parent information, and a model media agreement for families to use to set down guidelines for use of cell phones, tablets, laptops, and gaming devices. Continue reading →

PowerUp teachers learn how easy it is to create video productions

Educators from almost two dozen high schools got a lesson in super-quick video production and “flipped” classrooms recently, when their peers from the Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina came to Houston to share their expertise on one-to-one student/laptop initiatives.

This cute video, created by the team from Mooresville to show how easy short films are to produce, features teachers from the Phase II schools who completed the training.

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