In the fall of 2012, the Golden LEAF Foundation awarded a grant to the Transylvania County Schools (TCS) to implement a 1:1 teaching and learning initiative in both the Brevard and Rosman middle schools. (1:1 means that every teacher and student has a computing device for his or her personal use 24/7 throughout the school year.) This grant was based in part on the success that the school system had experienced after introducing a 1:1 project in both high schools. Over time the schools and TCS technology department have compiled data to evaluate all these initiatives, but sometimes the real assessment of a project is most evident when we ask teachers and students if the money has been well spent. Vera Cubero, Brevard Middle School’s instructional technology facilitator (ITF), gives us just such an assessment:
“Transylvania County’s middle and high school students have received one of the most worthwhile and life-changing gifts the past few years with the 1:1 computer initiative. Innovative, hard-working, and forward-thinking administrators and teachers have taken hold of this technology and have used it not only to substitute or augment, but to modify and redefine the education of Transylvania County’s students. |
