Apple - Education - Putnam Valley Middle School, Page 1

Profiles in Success: Putnam Valley Middle School

Putnam Valley, NY — Ed Hallisey thinks of his school as a “reciprocal learning environment.” As principal of Putnam Valley Middle School (PVMS), Hallisey was part of a team that helped develop and implement a 1 to 1 learning program based on Apple notebooks. Since the computers were distributed in 2005, Hallisey has seen teachers and students create an environment where learning is a shared experience. Most importantly, Hallisey believes, students are acquiring critical 21st-century digital literacy skills.

Prior to the rollout of PVMS’s 1 to 1 learning program, three straight years of defeated school budgets had prevented Hallisey and his colleagues from refreshing their educational technologies. Then a partnership with the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center (LHRIC) enabled PVMS to leverage local Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to secure funding. Thus, PVMS was able to provide brand-new Apple notebooks to all students in grades 7 and 8, and expand into the high school for grade 9. Most importantly, notebook computers were distributed to all teachers in the district.

Our Apple notebooks have changed our entire culture of what we do, and how we do it.

— Edward Hallisey, Principal, Putnam Valley Middle School

“Thanks to our 1 to 1 learning program,” says Hallisey, “our teachers and students are all learners together. Our Apple notebooks have changed our entire culture of what we do, and how we do it. Learning has taken on a new dynamic for us.”

School Visit Shows 1 to 1 Learning Transforms Classrooms

Hallisey and his colleagues did their homework before the launch of their notebook initiative: They read every article available about the success of the Maine Technology Learning Initiative; they consumed reference books about notebook-enabled learning; and they visited a number of schools such as Michael J. Petrides School on Staten Island, where nearly 1000 Apple notebooks were in use by students and teachers. What they saw was remarkable, Hallisey recalls.

“Petrides is much like Putnam Valley, in that it’s not a wealthy school,” he notes. “But when we talked to those kids and saw what they were doing, everyone realized we needed to move ahead on our project. Instead of just reading about how this would change learning for our students, we saw the impact first-hand.”

Phase-In Model Eases Transition

After receiving the green light (and the funding) needed to move forward with the 1 to 1 learning program, Assistant Superintendent Paul Lee laid out a long-term, phase-in process for the rollout. “This approach resulted in a lower initial investment, stable annual costs, and no staffing increases,” Lee says. “It was possible because the Mac platform requires little persistent maintenance. We’ll be able to use the notebooks for five years, while moving the older systems to the lower grade levels for student training and introduction to the basic applications.”

According to Hallisey, comprehensive professional development was the unequivocal first phase. “It was clear that we weren’t going to run this project without adequate, sustained staff training, because it would have been a failure,” Hallisey says. “And it wasn’t about taking the notebooks and teaching what the teachers were already doing. We needed a whole new redesign of our curriculum.”