Apple Distinguished Educator Jodie Deinhammer, who has taught with the Coppell Independent School District throughout her entire 25-year career, believes learning must be relevant to each of her students to keep them engaged.

Today, Apple is highlighting Jodie Deinhammer being a problem solver. This fall, the Coppell Middle School East science teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator based in Dallas, Texas, is teaching the school’s first gardening elective to eighth graders who will help tend the school’s community garden. Never mind the fact that the class is being taught remotely and students can’t visit the garden during school hours just yet.

Deinhammer has long embraced technology in the classroom, equipping her students with both a practical hands-on learning experience and critical thinking skills since the district went one-to-one with iPad in 2014.

Deinhammer told Apple that "Students having access to iPad has changed the way learning looks in my classroom. With iPad, each student can design their own learning path and use resources and accessibility features that cater to their individual needs. … They can create infographics, videos, or drawings, compose music, or write to show learning and growth over time. There’s a lot more of an individual component to education through technology."

Deinhammer, who has taught with the Coppell Independent School District throughout her entire 25-year teaching career, believes technology can help students develop key problem-solving skills and the motivation to learn independently.

For more on this story, read the full Apple Press Release.

The iOS App Economy

In a second press release issued this morning, Apple reveals that the iOS app economy has created nearly 300,000 new jobs since April 2019, helping to provide opportunities for Americans of all ages even as COVID-19 continues to create immense challenges and uncertainty for communities across the country. Developers nationwide — including companies such as Caribu, H‑E‑B, and Shine — have adapted their businesses to make sure they can keep supporting their customers during a challenging time.

Since the App Store launched in 2008, the iOS app economy has become one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy. Despite the pandemic, the App Store continues to provide economic opportunities for entrepreneurs of all sizes, helping anyone with an idea reach customers around the world and take advantage of new opportunities that would never be possible without it.

The App Store ecosystem now supports more than 2.1 million US jobs across all 50 states — an increase of 15 percent since last year — as part of the 2.7 million jobs Apple supports across the country. 

Apps have become even more critical to Americans’ everyday lives as they seek out new and safe ways to learn, work, and stay engaged with friends and family during the pandemic. The App Store provides support for remote ordering from restaurants, vibrant and impactful remote learning for students, telehealth for patients and doctors, and digital commerce for small businesses.

For the entrepreneurs who create these apps and the teams that design them, this produces lasting and sustainable economic opportunities, as evidenced by the double-digit growth in new app economy jobs across dozens of states since last year.

With the App Store under scrutiny by governmental bodies in the U.S., Europe and now Russia, Apple is trying to lay out their argument that there's more to the App Store than grabbing a 30% commission.

For more on this, read the full Apple Press Release.