River Forest’s Roosevelt Middle School has received recognition from technology leader Apple, Inc. as an Apple Distinguished School. This is the second time Roosevelt has been recognized by Apple, Inc., with this two-year designation (2017-19). The award recognizes Roosevelt and District 90’s commitment to continuous improvement and innovation by embedding technology across the entire school environment including teaching and learning.
Evidence of Roosevelt’s comprehensive use of technology is broad and varied including one-to-one iPad for all students and MacBook and iPad devices for teachers. For example, students are able to reflect, summarize, or synthesize their learning via word processing with Pages, and to record their voice and pen strokes to show how they solve math problems. They have used technology to produce comics about Shakespeare and the Declaration of Independence, and created webs to show relationships between historical events. For teachers, professional development opportunities range from whole group events such as an Apple Teacher training day to 15- minute Quick Dip sessions, monthly “Thrilling Thursday” workshops, or one-on-one coaching.
You can download a copy of Roosevelt's 2017- 2019 technology initiative iBook here. (Please note: This book is available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iPad, and with iTunes on your computer. Multi-touch books can be read with iBooks on your Mac or iPad. Books with interactive features may work best on an iPad. iBooks on your Mac requires OS X 10.9 or later.)