One-to-One iPad Ratio

 

As most of you are aware, Armstrong had been planning on a one-to-two iPad-to-student ratio made possible through the Granite TILT (Teachers Increasing Learning through Technology) program.  This program (formerly known as the eMINTS program) brings technology into teachers’ classrooms in exchange for the teachers participating in professional development to learn how to best utilize that technology in their instruction.

I am pleased to announce that, through some careful juggling of the school’s textbook/technology funds, we are now able to purchase the remaining iPads to facilitate a one-to-one iPad-to-student ratio to start this school year!  Each student in grades kindergarten through 6th will have access to his or her own iPad while at school, and teachers will now have far more flexibility in how they can use this tool in their instruction.

We will keep the iPads on our Wish List because we will need approximately 60 more over the course of the next two years to maintain the one-to-one ratio as the school size increases with additional 5th and 6th-grade classes.  Also, with a generous donation of 10 iPads from Ted and Cassidy Beck, we have a great start to a preschool set, but we would love to see that expanded.

As you can imagine, I’m extremely excited about this development.  I can’t help but remember when I was a sixth grader myself, and my buddy and I talked about how neat it would be if each of us had a computer to work with right at our own desk.  We were certain that’s what the future held, and, to an extent, it seems we have arrived.