Students Get iPads On First Day of School

Cries of “awesome!” and “cool!” could be heard throughout the classroom as students became acquainted themselves with their new Apple iPad tablets.

Sixth-grade students at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School were issued the iPads on Monday as part of a new pilot program designed to bring learning into the 21st century.

“We can see by the enthusiasm of the kids they’re not going to have any trouble adapting to this technology,” teacher Nan Hong said. "We have to keep up with the new technology — and we have to teach to how they’re going to think in the coming years.”

Initially, the 24 students will only use the devices to help with homework assignments, projects and some workbook studies. The goal of the One-To-One program is to move the middle school to become paperless by 2013.

With the proliferation of smart phones, e-readers, MP3s and hand-held video games, kids today are using advanced technological devices daily. By bringing the tablets into the classroom, school officials hope the students will be as eager to learn and study as they are to text or listen to music.

“We have Smart Boards in all the classrooms," Renee Stoeckle, the school’s director of marketing and development, said Monday. "We have a MacBook cart that travels around so students can use laptop computers. And while our teachers were using awesome technology to teach with, it seemed that the students weren’t really engaged with that technology.”

“We want to access that knowledge that they already have and bring it into education," she said.