Los Angeles Unified iPad comes to San Fernando Valley school

By , LA Daily News
POSTED: 09/12/13, 8:32 PM PDT | UPDATED: ON 09/12/2013 0
Having been part of a two-month trial run last year, the students at the arts-based high school could justifiably have been blasé about Thursday’s rollout of the Los Angeles Unified iPad project at their San Fernando campus.

Instead, the seniors in teacher Faraaz Qureshi’s homeroom excitedly exchanged tips and offered advice as they tackled their first assignment — snapping “selfies” with the iPad’s camera, then embellishing their portraits to create a collage reflecting their personalities and passions.

“This is a game-changer,” said Qureshi, an algebra teacher at ArTES — the Arts Theater Entertainment School — one of four individual schools that make up the Cesar Chavez Learning Academies and the first campus in the San Fernando Valley to get the district-issued tablets.

Over the next week or so, students at the other Chavez schools and the Valley Academy for the Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills will also get iPads as the district slowly moves forward with a program to provide tablet computers to 30,000 kids at 47 schools this school year.

The district plans to buy about 600,000 additional tablets — officials have said Apple will get the contract unless there are significant problems during the first phase — and have them in the hands of every student and teacher at the start of 2014-15.

That’s also when the new national standards for English and math will take effect, and Superintendent John Deasy has pushed hard for the technology needed to test student progress in mastering the new curriculum.

The district is using voter-approved construction bonds to fund what is expected to be a $1 billion project — half for the iPads and half for the upgraded computer networks needed to support the technology at individual schools. The budget for Phase One is $30 million.

Because ArTES and VAAS each opened within the last few years, their Wi-Fi networks are already state-of-the-art. That’s why they were selected for last year’s pilot test of the iPads and also why they’re among the 47 schools chosen to participate in the initial rollout.

On Thursday, the district invited reporters into the homeroom of the teacher most students call Mr. Q. As an adviser to the class of seniors, he quickly put them to work designing a high-tech self-portrait, a task designed to get them thinking about their strengths and interests and how they might someday translate to college or a job.

While April Chunab got help from Mr. Q in uploading a photo, tech-savvy senior classmate Juan Alcazar rapidly clicked through images of cars — his passion — as he recalled how last year’s iPad pilot helped him get and stay organized.

“I did way better at school,” Alcazar said.

ArTES Principal John Lawler said that was the experience of many of the 500 students at the pilot school, which melds academics with visual and performing arts.

“The kids were super-engaged in class, and just much more focused,” Lawler said.

Qureshi said the iPads became a valuable tool in helping him teach algebra — a troublesome subject for many kids — letting him literally take the fomulas off the white board and put them in students’ hands. His students used the iPads to record their rationale while solving math problems so he could determine who understood the concept and who needed extra help.

“It changes the orientation,” he said. “I give them the framework, and they make it happen.”

http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20130912/los-angeles-unified-ipad-comes-to-san-fernando-valley-school