Hiram College has recently been named an Apple Distinguished School for 2019-2022 for the leadership and educational excellence it has demonstrated in using technology to enhance teaching and learning. The College was recognized for Tech and Trek™, a mobile 1:1 technology program that guides students in using 21st-century technology in educationally purposeful ways.
Apple Distinguished Schools are centers of innovation, leadership, and educational excellence that use Apple technology to inspire creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. These schools showcase innovative uses of technology in learning, teaching, and the school environment and have documented results of academic accomplishment.
Lori Varlotta, Ph.D., president of Hiram College believes that this designation affirms the College’s commitment to prepare students for the world they inhabit today and the one they will lead tomorrow.
“At Hiram, learning occurs in many different places: in classrooms; at internship sites; in the field; doing research; during service-learning projects; on study away trips; and in any number of clubs, teams, or organizations,” said Varlotta. Our Tech and Trek program helps students understand the appropriate ways to use mobile technology and its many corollary devices in all of these places. Equally important for this generation of digital natives, Tech and Trek also teaches students when they need to put the devices away and be present with little or no technology in play.”
The selection of Hiram College as an Apple Distinguished School highlights the college’s success as an innovative and compelling learning environment that engages students and provides tangible evidence of academic accomplishment.
Hiram College announced its Tech and Trek program in February 2017 to position the College as a place where mobile technology meets mindful technology. By equipping students with an iPad Pro Bundle including Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard Folio, a pair of hiking boots, and a preloaded suite of educational apps, students are able to augment classroom studies; to navigate the literal and metaphorical treks they take at Hiram; and to collate and capture documents, multimedia presentations, photographs, videos, and other academic artifacts to share with friends, family members, prospective employers, or graduate schools.
