FWCS to buy iPads for use in classrooms
Last updated: June 12, 2012 7:22 a.m.
FWCS to buy iPads for use in classrooms
Devon Haynie | The Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne Community Schools is the latest Allen County school district to purchase iPads for its students.
On Monday, the school board voted to purchase 2,490 tablets for $1.2 million. FWCS will not provide an iPad for every student, like some other districts, but will instead purchase 83 mobile carts, or learning labs, that can be moved from classroom to classroom.
About 900 devices will be earmarked for middle school use and 1,590 will be reserved for high school use, according to district officials. The iPads are expected to be in use by October. Starting this fall, teachers will be trained on how to use them in the classroom.
“We want to make sure the teachers are ready to go before the students have them,” said high school area administrator Debra Faye Williams-Robbins.
The board also voted Monday to put wireless technology in the 20 buildings that don’t yet have such capacity. The district will spend $419,580 on the upgrade, which should be finished by the time the iPads are rolled out this fall.
FWCS is the most recent school district to make a large-scale technology purchase for students.
In April, East Allen County Schools decided to spend about $3.5 million to buy iPads for every student in grades 4 through 12, and iPads for one of every four students in grades 1 through 3.
Southwest Allen has purchased laptops for all of its middle school and high school students, and Northwest Allen County Schools will spend the next few months considering similar technology plans.
