Coxsackie-Athens is pleased to announce that Coxsackie Elementary School has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished School for 2022–2025 for our emphasis on developing our learner dispositions of: critical and creative thinking, collaboration, communication and being self-directed through the implementation of Apple technology.
Apple Distinguished Schools are centers of innovation, leadership, and educational excellence. They use Apple technology to inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking in learning, teaching and the school environment, and have documented results of academic accomplishment. “With Apple technology, we are able to create a culture focused on elevating academics while addressing students’ social emotional needs. Our entire staff works tirelessly to ensure all students can actively engage in their learning,” said Coxsackie Elementary Principal, Karen Miller.
The selection of Coxsackie Elementary as an Apple Distinguished School highlights our success as an innovator and a compelling learning environment that engages students, and provides tangible evidence of academic achievement.
Through a tech professional learning community and microcreditional learning platform, teachers dive deeper into software and apps and learn from each other. The Coordinator of Innovation analyzes Tech PLP using Numbers.
At various grade levels, 100% of the students complete a community impact project. Apple technology is a vehicle for communicating and advocating for current areas of interest. For example, Kindergarten uses iMovie to teach us how we can improve the planet. First graders equipped with green screen technology, the app PhotoSpeak and iMovie on our iPads, sent a heartfelt message to our community about protecting the Short Eared Owl. Additionally, 4th Graders and Community Service Members created an iMovie highlighting the roles of the
4th Grade Community Service Program.
Other opportunities for our students to use Apple technology are embedded in our daily schedule. CE students attend tech class and STEM Lab where they explore coding through Playground, build vehicles and fly Tello drones. They create cross- curricular projects, like the 4th grade Monster Advertisements, that used GarageBand and iMovie during Art and Music.
Virtual field trips are now more common and help students explore areas throughout the globe. For example, third graders visited Australia and Brazil while 4th graders learned about NYS by creating time-lapse videos and searching for a mystery school using clues given to them by the other school.
As we move forward, we would like to introduce more augmented reality into our classrooms so that students can have new experiences that they may not otherwise have. Our goal is to differentiate our products to provide students with a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning. We have only touched the surface of what our students are capable of doing.