{"id":2397,"date":"2014-02-21T17:03:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T17:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=2397"},"modified":"2014-02-21T17:03:12","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T17:03:12","slug":"resaca-middle-school-best-in-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=2397","title":{"rendered":"Resaca Middle School Best in Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

App Designers Honored for Work on Hello Navi<\/h3>\n
\"resaca-middle-school\"

(Left to right) Resaca Middle School teacher Maggie Bolado, student Janessa Leija, Caitlyn Gonzalez, Grecia Cano, Principal Asael Ruvalcaba, visually impaired student Andres Salas, Jacqueline Garcia Torres, Kayleen Gonzalez, Cassandra Baquero, Dean of Instruction Leticia Rodriguez, and Assistant Principal Carlos Lainez.<\/p><\/div>\n

Resaca Middle School Principal Asael Ruvalcaba was all smiles as he recognized six students and their teacher sponsor for the design of an app to highlight the Los Fresnos CISD Board of Trustees meeting Monday night.
\nResaca earned a Best in Region Award in the Second Annual Verizon Innovative App Challenge. Inspired by their visually-impaired friend Andres Salas, a group of six Resaca Middle School girls has made their school proud.
\nThe contest challenges middle- and high-school student teams to come up with a mobile application concept to meet a need in their school or community. The national program is aimed to boosting students\u2019 interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
\nRuvalcaba remembered when he interviewed Maggie Bolado for a sixth grade Science teacher position.
\n\u201cOne of the questions I asked her was about technology,\u201d Ruvalcaba told the board. \u201cShe said she would definitely implement technology in the classroom. And boy, she has.\u201d
\nUsing Twitter, Bolado was able to discover the Verizon Innovative App Challenge. She told counselors at Resaca about the idea, and the counselors identified students interested in the project.
\nSoon, Bolado had five potential teams of students. \u201cIt took a lot of time and effort by the students and Ms. Bolado,\u201d Ruvalcaba said. \u201cThey worked on this project a lot after school and on Saturday mornings.\u201d
\nBolado said students had to come up with the concept, which was that we needed to identify a problem or issue on campus or in our community that the app would benefit.
\nShe asked community leaders to speak to students about ideas. One speaker was Charlotte Smith, Andres\u2019 mobility specialist from the Region I Education Service Center in Edinburg. She talked to the girls who eventually conceptualized the Hello Navi app.
\n\u201cWe met three or four times a week for two months brainstorming and getting their essay ready,\u201d Bolado said. They submitted their paperwork to Verizon in December.
\nHello Navi \u2013 short for navigation \u2013 is designed to help a visually impaired person navigate inside a building. It will integrate digital tools such as a compass, scanner, VoiceOver, optical braille readers and Google indoor navigation technology.
\nEarly in January, Resaca was notified that it had received Best in State award. Last week, it received one of 24 Best of Region Awards, and a $5,000 cash grant to be applied to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs at the school.
\nThe app itself hasn\u2019t yet been created. Bolado and two colleagues will now participate in an online course, \u201cTeaching App Creation with MIT App Inventor,\u201d taught by app development experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s Media Lab Center for Mobile Learning.
\nA live virtual presentation was conducted Tuesday, after which the students could win one of eight national honors.
\n\u201cThis morning, we interviewed for the final process. What these kids are doing is unbelievable,\u201d Ruvalcaba said. \u201cThey are going to change the world. They will be an influence, not only for our students, but for humankind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

App Designers Honored for Work on Hello Navi Resaca Middle School Principal Asael Ruvalcaba was all smiles as he recognized six students and their teacher sponsor for the design of an app to highlight the Los Fresnos CISD Board of Trustees meeting Monday night. Resaca earned a Best in Region Award in the Second Annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lfcisd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions\/2399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}