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Mr. Byers from Fresno CA is requesting computers & tablets through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

Breaking Barriers With Technology & Sound

Help me give my students a 27-inch iMac to produce professional music in class!

  • $2,639 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

Celebrate Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

Imagine for a moment, that you are 12 years old and have been a primary caretaker for your siblings the past year in a pandemic. Your dad is in prison and you live in a one bedroom apartment with your mom (who has terminal cancer), grandparents, and three siblings in a lower socioeconomic part of the city that has a high rate of crime and gang activity. This and many variations of it are the reality for many of my students. Daily, they face barriers in the form of socioeconomic inequality, racial injustice, and violence.

Despite these enormous factors in their life, the quality that I see shine through my students is their resilience, creativity, and love for learning.

What makes them special is that they don't allow their circumstances to define them and instead their response is to faithfully attend class, make use of their resources on campus, and to adopt a growth mindset to realize that failure is their stepping stone to success.

I feel honored to be a music teacher because I get to witness sacred moments of their own self expression in the form of playing instruments, singing, and writing lyrics or poetry.

My Project

The Apple iMac is essential to our recording studio as the operating system (MacOS) is the only one that supports the industry-standard digital audio workstation (DAW), Logic Pro X. No other computer OS supports this program as it is owned and developed by Apple. This was the primary DAW that I used and witnessed my peers using in the film and music industry. Apple hardware and software is generally the standard for most music tech related recording studios throughout the world. In other words (and without exaggeration), our recording studio would be unable to produce a high-quality recording without this computer and DAW. Student (and even staff) devices lack the OS and specs to achieve this standard.

The music technology program trying to be established at Fort Miller will focus on composing and producing original music and audio content (podcasts, spoken-word poetry, etc.) Each year the music department will produce a student-driven album featuring original student work that reflects the theme of the album (decided on by the students).

This process will teach students how to write, record, and produce original music from start to finish. Our product (songs, podcasts, etc.) will only be as good as our technology allows us to be. By purchasing high-end industry-standard microphones, interfaces, computers, and software, this barrier will be removed for our students and the door is open for them to take their creativity as far as they'd like with a professional quality sound.

Mr. Byers
Grades 6-8

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Where Your Donation Goes

Materials Cost Quantity Total
Apple - 27'iMac� with Retina 5K display (Latest Model) - Intel Core i5 (3.3GHz) - 8GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Silver • Best Buy Education $1,999.99 1 $1,999.99

Materials cost

$1,999.99

Vendor shipping charges

FREE

Sales tax

$183.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$30.00

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$2,242.99

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$395.82

Total project goal

$2,638.81

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

$2,638.81

33 Donors

-$1,352.12

Donations toward project cost

-$1,165.66

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$186.46

Matching donations from our partners

-$1,268.62

Match offers toward project cost

-$1,078.33

Match offers to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$190.29

Excluded support for DonorsChoose

-$19.24

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

$0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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Project Activity

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