THUNDER BAY - Students at a local high school will be getting a helping hand thanks to a large donation to purchase some much needed technology.
Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School received $10,000 through the Best Buy Tech Grant to put toward the purchase of Ipads for math students.
“Our students don’t have the ability to get the devices themselves,” said DFC math teacher, Alyssa Saj. “So having them available here a the school is just fantastic. We are able to do more hands on work where they can actually understand what we are covering instead of just doing it with paper and pencils.”
The Tech Grant is a national program that awards several schools funding to purchase technology for the classroom.
“This time there were over 265 applicants,” said Shanna Morson, store leader at Best Buy in Thunder Bay. “Out of those applicants 15 were chosen and this school was one of them.”
This is the second school in Thunder Bay to receive the grant, with St. Ann School being awarded the money several years ago to purchase computers and tablets.
“It’s important that students have access to technology,” Morson said. “Obviously the way the world is going, technology is the answer, the be all end all. We want them to have that at the tip of their fingers so they have access to everything.”
Saj said the students are really excited to have access to the Ipads and not only will it help students with their learning, it will also benefit teachers.
“It can help with teachers gathering quick data on how our students are doing, it can help make things a little bit more fun and exciting for the students to learn, and just give them a clear understanding of the concepts,” she said.
“The more we have available the better. Right now we only have 25 Ipads available for 100 students. That means classes are sharing them, you only have limited time with them and you just can’t use them as much as you’d like to. So the more you have the better.”
