District to grow successful iPad program

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Early in the school year, the Rockville Centre School District rolled out an expanded iPad program at South Side Middle School, giving the tablet computers to all students in sixth and seventh grade to carry with them, use in class and take home.

Hundreds of iPads were given to middle school students in late autumn, and since then they have been incorporated into the lessons and work of the students in nearly every class. They’re used in core subjects like English, math and science, but also in music, art, technology and more.

“We’ve been pleased with the results,” said Christopher Pellettieri, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum. “[The students] are very careful with them. We bought really good, solid cases, so we’ve hardly had any of the breakage issues or security or loss issues that others have gone through. We were able to look at what people did in other districts and learn from that and really come up with a solid model.”

The district purchased the iPads through Nassau BOCES, which enabled it to get them at a discounted rate and pay them off over five years. And according to Pellettieri, the iPads have already had a positive impact on the district’s budget: the middle school has printed 53,000 fewer sheets of paper this year than last year due to the ability teachers have to give students work digitally.

The program of 1-to-1 student iPad ownership started in the middle school because of the access the students had in elementary school. The district already gives iPads to every fifth grade student, but they stay in the classroom.

“How could we give it to them every day in fifth grade and then take them away in sixth?” Pellettieri said. “Here’s this great learning tool, but you can only use it in elementary and not middle school.”

Along those lines, the district plans on expanding the program to the eighth grade next year. Pellettieri said district administrators were concerned about introducing them in the eighth grade this year, where they could prove a distraction to students who would be taking new science and math regents at the end of the year.

“We wanted to get a year under our belt of using them, then figure out how we were going to use them in eighth grade,” he said. “I’m already working with some of the eighth grade teachers on that.”

Pellettieri said that the district is going to continue to collect more data on the iPad usage and what can be done to make the experience better for students and teachers. Educators in the middle school are always getting more professional development with the iPads, he said, and students work with administrators to find new apps and also make sure the technology isn’t being abused.

“We’re going to look at it much more closely and do some surveys of students and teachers and parents before the end of the year to get some more feedback,” Pellettieri said. “But early returns are good.”