(spirited upbeat music)
-: 2020 was by far the most challenging year
the education segment has seen.
Millions of students across the country
did not have access to the internet
to attend their virtual classes, do their schoolwork,
or interact with their teachers and classmates.
Today, I'm fortunate to be
at Martin Middle School in Austin, Texas
and Austin ISD School
to discuss sustaining the efficiencies
of student connectivity
with three of their district leaders.
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We were actually supporting so many other industries;
when you think about telehealth,
when you think about being able
to search for transportation resources,
parents looking for unemployment resources
and government assistance.
-: Parents were more tech-savvy.
Kids are more tech-savvy.
As they go up in grades,
they are learning this technology
that they will need for their entire life.
So...
And what they were saying,
their hotspots at home helped them to do everything else.
-: It's one thing to provide a device,
but if the devices don't have the connectivity,
that defeats the purpose.
But I learned that it was important for me to find out,
"How can I connect better with students?"
In order for me to be an effective educator,
I have to meet people where they are.
-: What is the student experience that we wanna help design
and create for all of our learners?
What does the research say about how students progress
and work toward these standards
in a way that's going to work for them?
-: Tools that we put in place
and something as simple as a small little square box
-: Yeah.
-: can go out there and change the world.
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So when we think about turning that off
or going back to the way things used to be,
we have to really make sure
we're framing up the efficiencies
that were created as a result of the pandemic.
-: We're really committed to continuing on
with our connectivity...
resources and structures that we already have in place,
but then also starting to think about
what do we need to do to be creative in how those structures
might impact the student learning experience inside
and outside of school moving forward.
-: And now when we think about the core
of everything we're doing,
if student connectivity is there,
it should be a priority.
And if we can shift that priority structure,
then we can sustain these critical connectivity services
while planning.
Maybe this is our short-term, mid-term, long-term solutions
that we wanna talk about.
(spirited upbeat music continues)
-: And I think it really shows partnerships with T-Mobile
goes much more than just, say, cell phone usage.
I think the students over the last year, especially,
have learned that the world is a lot bigger.
Through the pandemic,
I think we learned that we're all connected
and perhaps we have more similarities
than we do differences.
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