ALLENTOWN, Pa. — As a gamer and animator, eighth-grader Ricardo Lopez has a passion for technology.
That’s why he joined South Mountain Middle School’s student tech team.
Ricardo, 13, and other select middle schoolers are getting training to help their teachers and peers troubleshoot tech problems on their new iPads.
Thanks to the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program, all students and teachers at Allentown School District’s four middle schools, as well as the new Bridgeview Academy high school, will get iPads equipped with keyboards and 24/7 internet access to both use in class and take home this school year.
ASD administrators presented on the program to students and families at Thursday’s kickoff event at South Mountain Middle School, highlighting the district’s involvement starting this school year through 2029.
Students will begin getting their devices in the coming weeks.
Each device will have 30 gigabytes of LTE data each month. Devices also have protection plans for limited repairs.
Teachers and other staff members, such as social workers, counselors and paraprofessionals, already got their devices and have begun related professional development that will continue through the school year.
Ricardo and other members of the schools’ newly formed student tech teams will make sure the iPads are successfully used for classroom learning.
“Being trained was really good,” Ricardo said. “The iPads, I would say, are really nice to use, [and to learn] some new stuff that you haven’t seen before.”
'Just here in Allentown'
The VILS program is a partnership formed in 2012 between the telecommunications company Verizon and Digital Promise, a global education nonprofit.
Its goal is to increase digital equity at secondary schools by helping students access technology and training teachers on how to effectively use it in the classroom.
“They don’t have this happening in Parkland, it’s not happening in Emmaus, it’s not happening in Southern Lehigh – just here in Allentown."Carol Birks, Allentown Superintendent
ASD is the only district in the Lehigh Valley region to be a part of the VILS program.
“They don’t have this happening in Parkland, it’s not happening in Emmaus, it’s not happening in Southern Lehigh — just here in Allentown,” ASD Superintendent Carol Birks said.
There are 660 Verizon Innovative Learning Schools, and only 10 in Pennsylvania, including the five ASD schools.
A total of 4,470 devices will be provided to the Allentown schools participating in the program. Those include South Mountain, Harrison-Morton, Raub and Trexler middle schools, as well as Bridgeview Academy high school.
The market value of Verizon Innovative Learning’s investment is, on average, more than $2.3 million per school.
St. Martin Torrence, Verizon’s senior manager of state and local government affairs, said the VILS program is part of Verizon’s “digital inclusion philosophy,” which is grounded in the company’s sense of “corporate responsibility.”
“We want to be good corporate citizens of the areas that we serve,” Torrence said.
VILS program perks
South Mountain Principal Kenneth Fritz said the VILS program is preparing students for future careers.
“We are training and teaching students for jobs that we do not know [will] exist right now,” Fritz said. “It’s critical that we stay on top of that, and this partnership again is going to be a huge lever in doing so.”
On their iPads, students and teachers also will have access to online textbooks and other resources.
Those include Coursemojo’s artificial intelligence-powered teacher assistant, Discovery Education’s science curriculum, ST Math’s visual problem solving game, UPcheive’s tutoring program and Sphero’s coding robots.
The VILS program also provides stipends to some of the district’s information technology staff and partially funds the salaries for five supervisors of instructional technology.
There is a supervisor at each of the participating schools.'
“Here, it’s now ways they can break out and support one another.”Kristin Hokanson, South Mountain Supervisor of Instructional Technology
The supervisors will help teachers integrate technology into the classroom and lead their schools' student tech teams.
Kristin Hokanson, South Mountain’s supervisor of instructional technology, said she’s looking to help teachers develop “powerful learning strategies.”
That looks like “less teacher talk and more student interaction,” Hokanson said.
She said students hid behind their devices during the COVID-19 pandemic as the world moved online, but now through the VILS program, they can use their devices in a positive way.
“Here, it’s now ways they can break out and support one another,” she said.
South Mountain Tech Team
Hokanson worked with South Mountain’s tech team over the past week to teach them how to log into their iPads, so they can help others do the same.
Amaury Sepulveda, a South Mountain sixth-grader, said he and other tech team members encountered problems with that process, but learned how to successfully navigate through them.
“The tech team is really fun.”Adrianna Dundore, South Mountain sixth-grader
As a result, the tech team members feel confident they will be able “to help everybody who’s growing through that situation” when all students get their iPads in coming weeks, Amaury, 11, said.
Adrianna Dundore, another South Mountain sixth-grader, said she is excited to use her iPad to learn more about graphic design.
Her interest in using technology for creativity is what inspired her to join the tech team, Adrianna, 11, said.
And after a week of training on her new iPad, the verdict is in.
“The tech team is really fun,” she said.
