Laredo Independent School District is armed with hands-on education, providing teachers and students the best possible advanced technology for their curriculum.
In an effort to build 21st century leaders and contributing members of our closely knit Laredo community, the district works diligently to cultivate a love of technology for teachers, students, administrators, and staff. “At Laredo ISD, we embrace technology as a powerful tool that empowers our students and teachers to transform education into a blended learning environment,” LISD Executive Director of Information Technology Ambrosio Gomez said.
For the upcoming school year, the district will be adding mobile interactive SMART boards to each of the content area classrooms. These devices will provide students with the opportunity to collaborate with their peers and complete assignments. In addition, teachers will be provided with wireless voice amplifiers and document cameras to further assist them in large setting classrooms, while following through with COVID-19 restrictions. Lastly, elementary and secondary teachers will be receiving new Windows laptops and iPads to further enhance their lessons and engage their students with interactive and hands-on activities utilizing technology and paper-based materials.
“Laredo ISD is leading the way with cutting edge technology programs that help our students bridge learning gaps in order to become successful college, career, or military contributing members of our society,” Gomez said. “LISD provides opportunities for our students to engage in experiences that they would not otherwise have without the use of technology, such as virtual reality exploration, interactive assignments, blended learning, digital homework, coding, robotics, and so much more.”
The goal of the district technology programs is to increase academic success and help students become digital literate in order to prepare them for the future. The processes used by learners within all of the district programs, including STEAM, Tech Expo, Coding Clubs, Robotics. etc., which allow students to become logical thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators that will in turn help them be ready for college, career or the military.
Laredo ISD understands the importance of providing all of its stakeholders with the latest information in a simple and easy to use manner when they are using their phones, tablets, laptops or desktops. Therefore, the district has partnered up with Apptegy, a web hosting system, that will provide families and end users with an intuitive district and campus website experience that will provide them with all of the necessary tools to enroll their students online, monitor their students progress, locate sports event, view school menus, and stay in contact with their children’s educators and administrators.
Additionally, the district takes pride in delivering secure public meetings that focus on the progress of their students, faculty, and staff. As such, an investment to utilize Board Book, a meetings preparation software, within all of the district’s meetings was made to streamline seamless presentations, store documents in the cloud for easy access, support online policy management, and provide all stakeholders with a distinctive experience.
Aside from providing the district’s parents with informational based tools, LISD hosts a fun-filled yearly Student Technology Exposition for students in grades Pre-Kinder through 12th. The mission of this event is to highlight students’ 21st century digital learning talents utilizing the district’s technology resources and tools. Elementary, middle, and high school students work together with their teacher sponsors in the creation of technology-infused projects focusing on various digital learning categories tied to the Technology Application TEKS.
To celebrate their extensive work, students are invited to present their projects during the showcase. For the 2021-2022 school year, the district held the 15th annual student technology event virtually. The Expo was kicked off with a drawing contest for students in grades Pre-K through 12th grade to compete in determining the T-Shirt designs and logos for this year’s expo theme which was “Change the World with Technology – Be a Tech Hero!”
To further promote the annual student technology exposition and emphasize the importance of learning about digital literacy, the district conducts a week full of STEAM-infused activities during national Computer Science Education Week, which occurs December 6th - 10th. Students are engaged in a variety of Christmas activities focusing on STEAM, coding, robotics, virtual reality, and so much more. In addition, leading up to the district technology expo, elementary and middle school students are given the opportunity to compete in their campus annual Code-A-Thon. Campus digital learning specialists lead these competitions and provide their students with an array of CodeMonkey coding challenges to determine the winner, who will get to compete in the district Code-A-Thon to be held during the Expo.
The district Code-A-Thon has a representative from each of the elementary and middle schools competing for the distinction of being crowned the district coding champion! At the conclusion of the tech expo, student participants compete for the chance to win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place trophies in the project categories of digital graphic design in still and animated mediums, audio and video multimedia presentations, coding/internet applications, and robotics.
Through the district’s IT Department, the components of STEAM (coding, 3D printing, Virtual Reality, Green Screen, and Robotics integrates with science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) are brought to life within our campus collaboratories where students get to explore the outside world without having to leave their classrooms. Innovative videos showcasing campus news, book reviews, concept main ideas, science experiments, etc… are created by students using green screen technology. Models of different student-made projects and characters are designed using 3D Printing software and end products are colored to be put on display. Students are exposed to different coding challenges through CodeMonkey, Code.org, and Lego Robotics where the students work collaboratively to create robot prototypes to accomplish a determined set of tasks.
The district’s top priority is to provide our students with a safe and exceptional digital learning experience while being in compliance with the Child Internet Protection Act, promoting responsible digital citizenship, training teachers to transform their traditional teaching practices into interactive, engaging platforms, and working together with their families by providing them with the technology knowledge, training, resources, and tools necessary to further support their children.
For the upcoming school year, the district will be adding mobile interactive SMART boards to each of the content area classrooms. These devices will provide students with the opportunity to collaborate with their peers and complete assignments within their classrooms in a project-based learning environment.
For more information, please contact LISD Executive Director of Technology Services, Ambrosio Gomez at (956) 273-3101, agomez@laredoisd.org.