Tag Archives: powerup

Teachers Being Trained in Preparation for Students Receiving Their Own Laptops in January

Teachers at Austin HS received their laptops on Aug. 13

After 33 years with the district, 65-year-old HISD Secondary Curriculum Manager Angela Miller had every intention of retiring at the end of the 2013 school year. That was until she was tapped this past spring to serve on a committee charged with implementing the district’s PowerUp initiative.

“This program is so exciting in terms of what it’s going to do for students and teachers that I knew I couldn’t leave,” said Miller. “I had to stick around and be a part of this.”

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HISD Begins Distributing Laptops as Part of PowerUp Initiative

The Houston Independent School District began distributing laptops to teachers at 11 high schools this week as part of phase one of the PowerUp initiative, and the district held a press conference to celebrate the roll-out at Austin High School on Aug. 13.

“We all know how kids learn today,” said Superintendent of Schools Terry B. Grier at the event. “Even some adults are learning differently. If we want it to work, instruction has to be rigorous, relevant, and engaging, so we have to modify how we teach and what we teach to meet their styles.”

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HISD Distributes Laptops to Teachers as Part of District’s New PowerUp Initiative

Eleven high schools to participate in pilot stage of program

The Houston Independent School District will kick off its pilot stage of the PowerUp program, a districtwide initiative to transform how teachers teach and students learn through technology, by delivering laptops to teachers at 11 campuses across Houston.  A press conference will be held on Tuesday, August 13 at 10 a.m. at Austin High School, 1700 Humble.

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Customer Service Reps and Rooms Being Readied to Support Laptop Initiative

While the latest and greatest technology can often make our lives easier and save us time, nothing is quite so frustrating as when a digital device doesn’t do what we want it to. That’s why HISD is making sure that its new one-to-one laptop initiative called “PowerUp” has a robust system in place to support participating staff and students.

HISD’s Information Technology Department has spent the summer months locating and preparing special customer-service rooms at each of the 11 pilot schools involved in the launch of PowerUp this coming school year. All the rooms are in the process of being renovated and upgraded with new cabling and equipment.

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Early Adopter Teachers Help Lead Laptop Initiative

HISD is calling upon some of the district’s most tech savvy teachers to help launch PowerUp, HISD’s groundbreaking initiative that will eventually give every high school student a laptop computer.

“Students learn differently than we did as children so you have to engage and empower them with technology,” said Bellaire High School teacher Seth Mintz during a training session involving select teachers from the 11 schools involved in phase 1 of PowerUp. Mintz and the other teachers were hand-picked by their principals because of their proven willingness to embrace technology in the classroom. This group of early adopters have been tasked with helping their campus colleagues embrace the initiative and its potential.

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PowerUp Pilot Schools Learning Best Practices

Nearly a century ago, famed educator John Dewey said, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” Dewey’s words of wisdom resonated among 150 HISD school leaders, central office staff members, and teachers as they gathered this month for a four-day retreat to officially launch and learn more about PowerUp, HISD’s groundbreaking initiative that will eventually give every high school student a laptop computer.

Principals and teachers involved in phase 1, or the pilot phase of PowerUp, along with members of curriculum, professional development, and instructional technology, met July 15-18 at Sharpstown High School to train with over a dozen educators from the Mooresville Graded School District located in Mooresville, N.C. MGSD has received national recognition for undertaking a digital technology initiative that provides every student in grades 4-12 with a computer to use at school and at home.

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District Getting Ready to PowerUp

Boxes and boxes of green wire line the halls of Sam Houston Math, Science & Technology Center, as workers perched on ladders string together cable and carefully tuck it inside the campus’ ceiling tiles. After several weeks of back-breaking work, Sam Houston is ready to power up, literally, as one of the pilot schools in phase 1 of HISD’s PowerUp program, a districtwide initiative that will eventually provide every high school student with a laptop.

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