LAUREL HILL — The new normal already is well established at Laurel Hill School.
For a year and a half, all high school students and eighth-graders have used iPads as part of a school district pilot program designed to identify the best device for electronic textbooks.
Each device is assigned to a student and loaded up with applicable and available digital textbooks and apps for his or her classes.
After a year of adjustments, the students were more than ready to use the hand-held tablets this year.
See the iPad pilot presentation. >>
“As soon as school started (the students said), ‘When are we deploying the iPads?’ ” Principal Lee Martello said with a laugh.
Students have set up a system for charging the iPads during lunch or P.E. class, and can easily flip through textbooks and apps. Most of them have developed an appreciation for the technology.
“You don’t have to carry your books and you don’t have to go to your locker so much,” freshman Lauren Mitchell said. “Sometimes it loads slow, but you can fix it.”
The iPad has changed math and science textbooks by allowing students to see a math problem worked out step by step or a science concept come to life, said Rebecca Welsh, Lauren’s classmate.
“It makes it easier in a way,” she said.
However, not all the students have embraced the devices.
Seniors Zach Ashmore and Taylor Harrison said they rarely pick up their assigned iPads from the charging station.
“I don’t like it because you can’t type very fast,” Harrison said.
Ashmore said the school district restricts what students can access on the iPads, and only math and science textbooks are really available for it.
“I find it useless,” he said.
Eric Mitchell, who oversees technology for the school district, said officials have found the lack of digital textbooks for other subjects frustrating, but overall they have been impressed with the pilot at the school.
Since the program started, the district has purchased 688 apps and 209 books in subjects like Algebra, Geometry, Physics and Chemistry. The district also has purchased additional iPads so younger students could prepare for the transition to the upper grades.
The results have been overwhelmingly positive.
“The kids here have really enjoyed using them,” sixth-grade science teacher Shannon Snow said. “They’re more enthusiastic. I’ve never seen them this excited.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.