LA goes big on iPads in schools

I feel like we’re still on the tip of the iceberg, but that a lot more of this is coming soon.

Students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will receive 31,000 free iPads this school year under a new $30 million program launched by the district. The goal is to improve education and get them ready for the workforce with new technology skills they are not getting at home.

The first 31,000 iPads are only the initial phase of the program, which plans to buy and distribute iPads to all 640,000 students in the nation’s second-largest school district by late 2014, Mark Hovatter, the chief facilities executive for the LAUSD, told CITEworld.

“The most important thing is to try to prepare the kids for the technology they are going to face when they are going to graduate,” said Hovatter. “This is phase one, a mix of high school, middle school, and elementary students. We’re targeting kids who most likely don’t have their own computers or laptops or iPads. Their only exposure to computers now is going to be in their schools.”

The first deployment phase is underway now in 49 of the district’s 1,124 K-12 schools. Each student is receiving an iPad pre-loaded with educational applications and other programs that will be used by the students in their studies. By the official beginning of the new school year in August, all of the students in the first phase of the project will have their iPads and won’t have to share them, said Hovatter.

The project came about because educators realized that workers today in every field, including construction and automotive education, require skills with computers and related technologies, said Hovatter. “We are making sure that everyone is able to take a test electronically. Even in construction, you can’t do those jobs now without having some familiarity with computers. Whatever jobs kids want to have, technology is likely involved. You’re just not going to be able to do well in society if you don’t have some experience.”

It’s an interesting point about how even students in a “vocational” path instead of a college-bound path need to be comfortable and familiar with computers. With all the fuss over HB5 and the legitimate concerns that graduation requirements were made too loose, perhaps a commitment to ensuring that all students get a sufficient exposure to current technology would be in order. Some school districts here already have plans for iPads or laptops for their students. I hope that this becomes standard issue for all in the near future. If nothing else, there are now enough school districts experimenting with these tools that we should begin to have a pretty good idea of how best to use them going forward.

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