“Van Meter Community School Superintendent John Carver says the 630-student school district has ‘stepped through the looking glass’ with a one-to-one initiative that trades textbooks for laptops in grades 6-12, connecting students to an infinite collection of human knowledge and for collaborations with peers around the country, and potentially changing the role of teachers from lecturers to facilitators and resource guides,” Beth Dalbey reports for The Iowa Independent.
“Today’s students have grown up with technology and are comfortable using it to access information and network socially, so why not empower them to use it as a tool to enhance their learning, Van Meter educators asked themselves six years ago,” Dalbey reports. “‘Kids learn through technology,’ said John Seefeld, a seven-year school board member and former board president who helped lead Van Meter’s transformation to a technology and information empowered school. ‘Should we say ‘come to school and turn it off?'”
Dalbey reports, “The lease for the use of Apple’s Macintosh laptop computers and related products costs Van Meter $149,000 a year, which works out to be about $50 per computer. The initiative is saving the district money in other areas, said Elementary Principal Maribeth Arentsen. ‘Work books was our largest expenditure,’ Arentsen said. ‘Five years ago, we got rid of our workbooks and all funds now are for focused instructional materials.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]