Paul Revere Charter Middle School delivered iPads to approximately 200 students on Thursday and Friday, November 14 and 15, as part of a district-wide plan to get the Apple tablets into the hands of every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Revere Principal Fern Somoza said the students and teachers were “thrilled” to have the iPads in the classroom. Teachers are expected to be incorporating the high-tech devices, including the use of Apple TV, into innovative lesson plans in every subject.
On the first day of the rollout, students worked on personalizing their desktops, exploring apps and creating a password. Somoza was surprised at the responsibility the students showed and at their aptitude with the tablets.
“A lot of kids really knew their stuff,” Somoza said. “One sixth-grader finished all the tasks within a few minutes.”
Somoza called the rollout a success, even though it involved only a limited number of students. “The district did its job, and we are very pleased,” she said. “We had our hitches, but they are tiny compared to everything else.”
Somoza coined the rollout a “pilot within a pilot,” as only nine classes will be using the iPads initially. Six of those nine will be sixth-grade classes. Somoza said that since sixth-graders at Revere have only two teachers, it will make it easier to store and transfer the tablets between classes. Storage is key since students will not be allowed to take the iPads home initially.
“I cannot distribute 2,000 iPads and expect to keep them on campus,” Somoza said. “It is a very long process. We want to see where the kinks are before we issue them to every student.”
Somoza said that Revere’s slower rollout will be “working on the side of caution,” and that operating on a smaller scale will make it easier for them to incorporate the devices into teaching and learning.
LAUSD voted last week that they would be “slowing down” the district-wide initiative. Somoza said that the middle school had made the decision to slow down their rollout prior to the vote and that LAUSD is “allowing us some leeway to make our own plans.”
The country’s second largest school district has been under fire recently for problems with the integration of iPads, such as the program running over-budget and students deleting security measures on devices, allowing them to access content that should have been off-limits.
Critics have called the $1 billion program too expensive and think funds could be used elsewhere. United Teachers Los Angeles has publicly stated they want some of the funds to go to teacher salary increases.
Somoza is undeterred by the detractors. “We are in a technology age, and [the school district] needs to catch up to that age.”
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