Notebooks Replace Textbooks in Arizona
Apple 1 to 1 Learning
“The students regard their Apple notebooks as a very necessary tool. There’s such good education going on and it’s much easier than we ever thought it would be.”
— Cynthia Lee, Principal, Empire High School
The learning environment at Empire High School isn’t quite the same as in other schools: Textbooks are not a part of the curriculum. Instead, every student and teacher has an Apple notebook offering access to rich digital media, and the school boasts 156 wireless access points — including the football field. Empire is the first high school in the country designed to be entirely wireless and textbook-free, and provides an exclusively digital curriculum in all subject areas.
Given that many of Empire’s teachers were not tech-savvy at first, Principal Cynthia Lee ensured the success of the 1 to 1 learning program by crafting a professional development model based on peer-to-peer coaching. Sessions were headed up by teachers who were proficient with the use of digital instructional materials, or who had developed successful classroom management techniques. Members of the administrative staff also helped out.
Students and teachers quickly became accustomed to 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week technology access, and to the use of such tools as Studywiz and the iLife suite. Teachers report that students find the use of the digital media applications in iLife to be fun and exciting. Plus, acquiring such skills is helping tomorrow’s workforce prepare for their careers.
Empire’s teachers are now free to explore and use timely digital content to teach Arizona’s state standards. With the help of Apple Instructional Management Solution, teachers can create multimedia-learning resources, perform assessments, manage exams, and more. And with the power of Max OS X Server, Xserves, and Xserve RAID storage, Empire’s back-end infrastructure is more than up to the task of supporting the school’s dynamic learning environment.
