Dougherty County School System announces massive technology initiative

ALBANY — Shiny new laptops and tablets, training and materials for teachers, and training in the technology driving jobs of the now and the future are all benefits of an initiative announced on Friday by the Dougherty County School System.

The collaboration that also includes Ed Farm, an Alabama-based nonprofit organization that promotes innovative education methods, will be introduced to students in a few months and go into full swing with the start of the next school year.

Members of the public, including elected officials, got a view of online learning on big screens as they held tablet computers following the Friday announcement at the Commodore Conyers College and Career (4C) Academy campus.

“In the summer, we’re going to have some student activities to kick it off,” Schools Superintendent Ken Dyer said during an interview following an announcement ceremony Friday attended by officials with Apple and Ed Farm. “The teachers have to get trained first. For students, we roll it out next year.”

The new technology initiative will expand and enhance the school system’s educational technology and will put it on the leading edge of technology through the company’s products, services and instructional support, according to the school system.

As part of the effort, the system will launch DoCo Codes, a learning initiative designed to prepare students for the careers of tomorrow through the use of advanced technology.

“When it comes to innovation, the Dougherty County School System embraces it, encourages it and rewards it, and so to work alongside Apple, a world leader in technological innovation, is impactful for us and our students in a multitude of ways,” Dyer said. “It’s more than just technology. This collaboration embeds a full-time Apple professional learning specialist in our community to build capacity among our teachers, instructional coaches and others.

“I believe that we have a mandate to redefine and re-imagine how people see education and that this partnership, and others that we’re creating, has the potential to not only improve the educational experience in Dougherty County, but to lift up the southwest Georgia region as a whole.”

Through the program, students will have the opportunity to learn coding and app development through DoCo Codes, a STEM-based initiative developed in a collaboration between the DCSS, Ed Farm and Apple. It will expose DCSS students to coding and app development using iPad and Mac together with Apple’s Everyone Can Code and Everyone Can Create curricula.

The collaboration is designed to promote student success by giving students an opportunity to learn how to build leading-edge software and apps in Albany.

Ed Farm also will enhance professional development of teachers through its Teacher Fellows program, which helps promote better learning outcomes for students by equipping teachers with tools and resources needed to cultivate the work force of tomorrow.

Ed Farm is working with schools in five states, including Atlanta in Georgia, and part of its mission is assisting schools in distressed communities.

“We target areas where students typically don’t have access to this technology for learning,” organization President Waymond Jackson told The Herald. “We want to make sure we’re creating opportunities for everybody.

“Albany’s been very (excited) to get moving, reached out and wanted to build a relationship with our partner, Apple. It looked like a very good fit based on what they were doing in the district.”

Ed Farm also is looking at activities outside of the schools to reach out to the community as a whole.

“In Birmingham, we have a 16-week coding boot camp we do (for adults),” Jackson said. “It’s something we would like to do here and in other places where we operate.”

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]