South End schools to go iTech with almost $1 million

Published 4:08 pm Friday, July 13, 2012

LANGLEY — Money will be tight next year in South Whidbey schools.

Well, there are apps for that, and there will be plenty of iPads and iPods to swipe and compute on in the South Whidbey School District.

Despite losing a handful of teaching positions to declining enrollment and dwindling revenues, the South End’s capital funds for technology are primed to be spent.

The district’s technology director, David Pfeiffer, briefed the school board on an iPad project at the June business meeting. That brief became a full-fledged report Wednesday night during the school board’s budget workshop, and the various tablet and handheld device costs total $986,000. Funds collected from the technology levy approved by voters may only be spent on technology-related expenses such as computers, software, network infrastructure and certification. The almost $1 million for technology purchases will also pay for a couple of one-year contracts for teachers who will be “repurposed” to the technology department, said District Superintendent Jo Moccia.

One of the benefits of purchasing the handheld devices is entirely financial, she argued. The idea is to eliminate costly and outdated textbooks that require lots of money, space and replacement.

“I don’t want to carry textbooks any more,” Moccia said. “I don’t want to buy textbooks any more.”

The school board members applauded the presentation and praised a handful of teachers who represented the technology integration panel. Those teachers are responsible for learning how to use and regulate the devices in their classes, then share that information with their colleagues in a peer-to-peer professional development plan.

Fred O’Neal, board member, a bit of a techie in his own right, lauded the project and its flexibility to have students and their families directly alleviate a class need. These days, lots of students have smartphones and iPods or iPads.

“The lines are getting blurrier and blurrier between what’s a computer and what’s a phone and so on,” he said. “We need to have a policy in place, and as far as I’m concerned, that policy only goes one way and that’s that students can use their own devices.”

The first grade-wide implementation of the touchscreen iPad tablets will be seventh grade. Seventh grade students will have access to the second generation iPad, not the newest version. A pair of second- and third-grade classes at South Whidbey Elementary School will be the pilot program for iPod use. Moccia said she would like to use the other two classes that will not use iPods to compare test scores.

Threat of theft or loss was already considered by Pfeiffer and the teachers. A professional development group from Apple informed them of a location function, which when in range of open wireless internet signals, can let the district track where the devices are used. Eventually, students will earn the right to take the iPods and iPads home, so they can utilize the devices beyond the classroom. One high school English teacher explained her plan to use the devices for online lectures that can be accessed remotely and at each student’s discretion. The catalog of free information through podcasts and University on iTunes also opened scores of teaching possibility.

“We really need to start facilitating the idea that learning is any time, at any place,” O’Neal said.