By Madeline Bailey

Staff Writer

Across the country iPads are being introduced in classrooms. In the near future, iPads could be found on the desks of FFHS students.

“I absolutely think that using iPads instead of textbooks would be better,“ Principal Arty Tillett said. “I think we’ve been behind in the tools we use to educate students for years.”

As soon as next year, students could be using iPads or other alternative technology. Over 600 school districts across the country use iPads instead of textbooks for their students. According to USAToday.com, each iPad would be more of a long-term investment than textbooks costing between $500 and $600.

“I think if we got iPads it would save money and the environment,” sophomore Susannah Weaver said. “Think about all the paper we would be saving.”

Currently, textbooks are lost and destroyed every year, which raises some concern that students may break or lose the iPad they are using.

“No, I don’t think we should get iPads,” freshman Brian Evers said. “People would break them, and they wouldn’t last long.”

iPads are not the only form of technology that the school is considering. The main goal is to get closer to one-to-one computing, so the school may provide each student with alternatives such as ThinkPads, Kindles or newer laptops.

“There’s some talk about the new Google tablet that’s coming out,” Tillett said. “Whether it’s an iPad or a Google tablet, it’s the next step.”

Eliminating textbooks may be a step that some teachers are not ready to accept.

“I don’t like the idea of using iPads for math,” math teacher Rich Hoffman said. “You can never replace a piece of paper, a pencil and the power of the students’ brain completely.”

iPads offer many apps that could not only replace textbooks, but they could be used in place of calculators and notebooks as well. Some of these apps include iBooks, KeyNote, Numbers, CourseNotes and GoDocs iPad. With the GoDocs app, students could easily use their Dare to Learn accounts on the iPads. KeyNotes and CourseNotes could be used for the students to take handwritten notes, while the iBooks app would have their textbooks available on their iPads.

Other schools in Dare County have experimented with iPads in the classroom. Kitty Hawk Elementary School, First Flight Elementary School and Nags Head Elementary School have received a class set of iPads.

“The most popular part of the iPads so far is that they are being used to teach the students math,” said Brian Wehner, technology coordinator at KHES. “The iPad has many apps for multiplying, dividing, adding and subtracting.”

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