Educational device

Apples aren’t just for teachers anymore. A school board is making sure that every one of its student has access to a shiny new Apple of their own.

The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board announced Tuesday an investment of $1.5 million to place hundreds of iPads, Apple laptops and Smartboards at all Catholic elementary schools by the start of the school year.

On top of that, the Catholic board has started upgrading the Wi-Fi service with the expectations of having all elementary schools wireless by the Christmas break.

Justin Felix, a Grade 6 student at Corpus Christi, said he was excited to use the new computers when he went back to school in September.

“I’ve used laptops at home before and they are a lot of fun,” Justin said. “I’m looking forward to using the school’s laptops because you can do more and you can access more information if you know what to look for.”

Paul Mackett, a teacher with the Catholic board, helped train his fellow teachers on how to best utilize the technology in their classrooms. He said the iPads, Smartboards and laptops will give teachers more freedom to be more creative with their lesson plans.

“The technology definitely lets the teacher be more creative you’ve got everything from the World Wide Web to Wikipedia,” Mackett said.

“This is the age of these kids are living in they live in technology. You’re taking a lesson that they are doing say in science and you can now make it into a real life instant lesson with the iPad. You can do a science experiment on lightening and let them visually see what lightening looks like.”

Mackett added the new technology will make it easier to track student process throughout the school year.

Catholic superintendent Joan Powell said the board always looked at new ways to engage students and improve learning so using technology was the next logical step.

“I’ve seen all kinds of amazing projects that the kids have worked on and we’re heard from the students themselves about how much they love doing it and how motivated they are to use technology,” Powell said. “Behavioral problems disappeared because the kids are happy, engaged and learning.”

Powell said the students won’t behind a computer screen all day. Instead, the students will work in groups or interacting in a classroom setting, she said.