El Paso ISD

mobile carts, and a number of administrators’
notebook PCs are HP. “HP is a top-tier
manufacturer and we’ve always had a great
relationship,” Stiles says. “HP brings expert
knowledge of education-industry needs, and
lets us know about technologies of the future.”
The district uses Mileposts software from
Silverback Learning Solutions as a combination
learning management and student tracking
system, along with resources from Silverback’s
non-prot partner Gooru Learning.
EPISD bought the HP Stream Notebooks
through HP Partner Abacus Computers Inc.,
which also provided initial imaging and asset
tagging services, and helped arrange theft-
protection traceability.
EPISD creates its own digital
textbooks
The introduction of notebook PCs at EPISD
went hand in hand with another district
innovation: creating its own digital curriculum.
EPISD started by downloading standard
textbooks available for no-cost from the CK-12
Foundation, a California-based non-prot
organization. Then, it paid its own teachers
stipends to customize the content to EPISD
curricula. On top of that, individual teachers
may supplement the electronic content with
their own videos and other material.
“The device-selection
committee, the teachers, the
students—all three, hands
down, named the HP Stream
Notebook as their top choice.”
– Stephen Stiles, chief technology ocer, El Paso
Independent School District
EPISD belongs to the League of Innovative
Schools and the New Tech Network, and
already has launched initiatives in two high
schools to make teaching 100% project-based.
It became clear to CTO Stiles that teachers
were embracing the new digital teaching
opportunities. He saw rst-hand how many
teachers populated the Oce 365 environment
with student assignments as soon as they
learned to log on for the rst time.
“There was no request or dictate from the
district for this,” he says. “The teachers did it
on their own initiative. If you could get all of
our 4,200 teachers in a room, you’d hear
strong agreement that these tools are
phenomenal.” Today Stiles peeks into
classrooms to see students enlivened in new
ways, using their HP Stream Notebooks to
learn, to communicate, and to deliver team
presentations in front of the class. After
distributing devices initially to 18,000 high
school students, the district expanded to
middle school algebra students.
Case study | K-12 Education
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