Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho Announces Choices For School District's Digital Transformation

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Feb 06, 2014, 06:46 ET

MIAMI, Feb. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho announced today that Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation's fourth largest school district, took a giant leap towards the digital transformation of the school district and a 1:1 device initiative, launching a rollout of 100,000 HP and Lenovo Windows 8 devices by August. Beginning this spring, 13,000 elementary school students, along with 15,000 7th grade civics students and 9th grade world history students will get devices. Additionally, more than 10,000 interactive boards will be added to classrooms across the district.

Carvalho made the announcement with Margo Day, Vice President, U.S. Education, Microsoft Corp., which will provide Office 365 for all district students to use. Microsoft will also provide Skydrive, a cloud-based information storage system, as well as technical services that ensure the district's educational materials will run properly on wireless devices. Students will have a single sign-on that will allow them to access their device, the network and applications all with one login.

"Technology, by itself, is not going to close the achievement gap between the rich and the poor, a gap that threatens so many of our minority students," said Carvalho. "But when technology is used correctly, we have seen powerful results in our very own technology-rich iPrep Academies, for example, with better test scores and increased employment opportunities."

Carvalho's announcement marks a big step forward for Miami-Dade's 350,000 students. With the infrastructure in place to provide them with Office Pro Plus, connected to enterprise-quality Windows 8 devices, students will have the tools they need and to gain the skills proven to be most valuable for success in college and career. A recent IDC Study, which scanned more than 14 million job postings, found that the most in-demand skills for the top jobs through 2020 are the modern skills such as communication, problem solving and teamwork, coupled with the technical skills of Microsoft Office.

The announcement was made at a Microsoft YouthSpark Connection panel in Miami where local education, business, and city leaders were brought together to discuss a problem facing the city of Miami, and this nation—the unfortunate divide between students who have access to technology, skills and opportunities to be successful and those who do not.

SOURCE Miami-Dade County Public Schools