By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

SOUTHWEST RANCHES | They did it again. For the second time, St. Mark the Evangelist School has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished School.

About 700 students, teachers, administrators and parents applauded Sept. 11, 2024, as two Apple officials gave their citation “for inspiring, imagining, and impacting teaching and learning through continuous innovation.”

The honor covers a three-year term through 2027. St. Mark School also won Apple recognition in 2021 for the previous term.

Father Jaime Acevedo, the pastor, said not only the staff and faculty, but “most of all, the treasure that is you” – meaning the students.

“I hope you will grow up to be wonderful, exciting Catholic men and women,” Father Acevedo said.

The Sept. 11 event did double duty, also serving as a Patriot’s Day Mass to honor first responders – police, doctors, emergency technicians and other emergency workers – on the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist attack in 2001.

“Let us all pray that one day, they will be in the unemployment line, because they will not be needed,” Father Acevedo said of the first responders.

He led prayers for the first responders in the audience. The students not only bowed their heads, but hundreds of them stretched their hands in prayer.

Father Acevedo asked his listeners to take a special prayer card – asking God for the grace “to answer your call with courage, love and lasting dedication” – then pray it with their families at home.

“This is wonderful,” said Rose Bagley of Palm Springs North in Miami-Dade County, whose son attends St. Mark School. “The kids learn what they need to know about God and family. And they have good technology.”

Those at the Mass saw a three-minute video, summarizing the school culture of “embracing technology,” as Wardlow put it.

The video, which helped Apple officials decide to recognize St. Mark School, showed students using iPads to take notes, work together and download lessons and other materials.

“It seems like every time I'm here, you're doing something or building something,” Jim Rigg, archdiocesan superintendent of schools, told St. Mark School during the Sept. 11 Mass. “You are one of the flagship schools of the archdiocese.”

St. Mark is one of seven recognized Apple Distinguished Schools in the Archdiocese of Miami. The others are St. Anthony School in Fort Lauderdale, St. Brendan High School in Miami, St. Coleman School in Pompano Beach, Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches, Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale and Immaculata-Lasalle High School in Miami.

Asked why the archdiocese has so many, Rigg credited the teachers. “In the 21st century, we should take advantage of all the wonderful educational tools,” he said. “But it takes an effective teacher to unlock that potential.”

Parents told their own stories of how the technology has enhanced their children’s studies.

Claudia Blatnick, a volunteer parent at St. Mark, especially admired the use of the online IXL learning app, saying her daughter used it to design her own flash cards as study aids.

“Years ago, we had no e-mail; now the kids have so many tools to help them study,” Blatnick said.

Frances Ayala’s fifth-grade son can study for exams with an app called Quizlet. She can monitor his progress, including test results, with an online platform called Canvas. And for a Hispanic heritage unit, he produced a video in which he imitated guitarist Carlos Santana.

“They're always finding creative ways for technology,” said Ayala, whose son tried other schools before enrolling at St. Mark. “It’s made a total change in my son’s attitudes. He's challenged, motivated. He loves it.”

In the school’s STREAM (science, technology, religion, engineering, mathematics) class, coordinator Brooke Lawlor and her students use a variety of apps daily.

With Nearpod, she can present lessons on a touch-sensitive, chalkboard-size screen, and students use Apple’s Freeform app to brainstorm and develop projects together. They can pool their work on one of eight 45-inch video screens via wi-fi.

“There’s a lot of collaborative learning,” Lawlor said. “Students can put problems on a board and get immediate feedback.”

With ScratchJr, even the youngest students learn basics of computer code, by writing directions for a silver spherical robot about the size of a jingle bell.

Religion, too, gets technological boosts. Students’ iPads have the Laudate app, which includes prayers, the catechism, Stations of the Cross, Vatican II documents, two Bible translations and other resources.

Donna Villavisanis, director of faith formation at St. Mark School, demonstrated the virtual rosary app. When she touched an on-screen bead, up popped the appropriate prayer. The app also makes a user say the prayers in order, rather than skip ahead.

“Technology has opened the world to them,” said Villavisanis, who has three children at St. Mark School. “It’s a giant leap forward in exposure to knowledge.”

Despite all the hardware and software – and her major role in acquiring them – the principal at St. Mark School, gave a surprising appraisal: “They're just toys. The question is, what do we do with them?”

She concluded: “We have the responsibility to teach the students to use the technology properly and to enhance how they learn. And how to impact the world. We have the honor to provide it to them.”