HP, Microsoft ‘Reinvent the Classroom’ at Skyline School

Students will have even more tools for learning when they return to Skyline School in the fall.

The Solana Beach school recently doubled its number of computers and received a variety of other hardware and software solutions, thanks to the Reinvent the Classroom initiative.

Sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, and in partnership with Digital Promise Global, Skyline received a variety of equipment, including 10 HP notebooks, a 15-inch television, a color printer and software, as well as HP’s Sprout Pro, a desktop computing system with multiple three-dimensional capabilities plus a corresponding 3-D printer. Skyline previously had 10 desktop computers in its media center.

“It’s very, very exciting,” said Skyline Principal Lisa Denham. “You get equipment, which is always very exciting, but what we’re even more excited about is this will allow us to be able to partner with classes in India or China and be able to work on projects simultaneously and communicate via Skype.”

HP and Microsoft are setting up more than 60 learning studios at schools around the globe through the joint program. Every studio will be equipped with cutting-edge technology designed to encourage creativity and enable collaborative efforts with students and teachers around the world.

Digital Promise Global, a nonprofit organization working to spur innovation in education in order to improve the opportunity to learn for all Americans, is directing the collaborative global network of learning studio schools. The nonprofit, which was authorized by Congress in 2008 and formally launched in 2011, helps select schools based on vision and key achievements, as well as potential to impact student learning through the program, which supports advanced blended learning, international collaboration and the maker movement in education.

Among Skyline’s achievements is the district’s one-to-one initiative, in which iPads are provided for all students in kindergarten through sixth grades at Skyline. Skyline, like other schools in the district, is also recognized for its STREAM (science, technology, research, engineering, arts and mathematics) program.

In the past few years, the district redesigned STREAM Discovery Labs at every school. Today, fulltime Teachers on Special Assignment, or TOSAs, develop and deliver curriculum that is coordinated with classroom teachers and grade levels at every site.

“I’m just very proud of the direction that Solana Beach School District is going,” Denham said.

“They (students) live in this world of technology,” she added. “So teaching them how to use it, how to access information that’s reliable and safe, and just giving them solid skills while they’re still in elementary, I think, is critical.”

For more about Reinvent the Classroom, visit www.digitalpromiseglobal.org/learning-studios