Located in El Paso County, Texas, close to the Mexican border, the Ysleta Independent School District supports a low socioeconomic student population, 96 percent of which is Hispanic. Few families in the community have computers in the home, and fewer still have Internet access. But at Hillcrest Middle School, 600 students and 37 teachers now have wireless iBook laptops that support learning at school and at home. As part of the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (TxTIP) program, Hillcrest’s students received the laptops in October 2004. Ever since then, says Micha Villareal, director of instructional technology for the district, learning has dramatically improved and now occurs around the clock. This is not only true for the middle school students but for their families as well.

Ever since the day the laptops arrived, the excitement level has just been off the charts. I think we will see big jumps in our students’ achievement, as the iBook laptops are having a huge impact on the way in which they learn.

— Micha Villareal, Director of Instructional Technology, Ysleta Independent School District

Apple Professional Development (APD) led an intensive technology integration effort for Hillcrest’s faculty, which Villareal says has been central to the success of the Texas TIP program. For example, the APD consultants helped Hillcrest teachers successfully manage the iBook laptop initiative through such tools as Apple Remote Desktop, enabling teachers to monitor students’ web surfing and their use of digital content. The Apple Professional Development courses also taught teachers how to use their new technology tools to develop dynamic curricula in all content areas.

Since the iBook laptops were distributed, Instructional Technologist (and Apple Distinguished Educator) Jamey Osborne reports that student attendance is up. In fact, since students don’t have access to the Internet at home, they often arrive on campus at 5 a.m. and leave long after their last classes, in order to take advantage of Hillcrest’s wireless network. During the first few weeks of the laptop program, he adds, administrators were forced to close the library for the first portion of the lunch hour, as students were heading straight to the building to flop down on sofas and log onto the Internet, and were forgetting to eat. Such tremendous engagement is still the norm at Hillcrest, and is an extremely positive indicator of students’ engagement with learning with their iBook laptops.