An iPad for Every Freshman

Brookfield High School provides incoming freshmen with iPads for classroom use.

Freshmen students entering Brookfield High School for the new school year Monday will all be handed iPads.

It is part of Brookfield's "One to One" program -- one tablet computer per freshman.

“This will be our second year here with iPads in the building," said Joseph Palumbo, principal at Brookfield High. "We rolled out to the freshman class last fall, we will be rolling out to another freshman class this fall."
           
The use of the iPads is having an impact on students.
           
“We definitely use the iPad in every class, but some classes we use more than others,” said Peter Lazorchak, a student at Brookfield High. “I did my entire health class exclusively on the iPad kind of like a test.  I was able to write down all the notes and stuff just on the iPad,” said Lazorchak.
           
Brookfield is the only public school in Connecticut giving out iPads now, but private schools in the state doing so as well.
           
It costs about $100,000 for the 500 or iPads for lower classmen and teachers, according to school officials.

“We’ve got a business director here in town who worked very creatively with some existing technology leases we already had for printers and copiers. Also, we did not entirely replace textbooks, but we used money from a textbook account we would typically use,” said Palumbo.
           
The school does not issue iPads to juniors and seniors, but the upperclassmen are allowed to bring their own devices to use in class.
           
“When the teacher gave us a power point on the board, if we wanted to remember it so we could study, a lot of people would take pictures of the board so they could save it to an app where they could write notes underneath it,” said Lazorchak. 

Many students say the tablets give them the ability to organize. 
           
“I use it a lot to take notes and it was really great because you could highlight and come back to different things that we maybe wanted to go back to for like reviewing,” said Emily Carrizzo, a sophomore.
           
Teachers are finding ways to incorporate the use of the iPad into their lesson plans.
           
“The success of a device in a given content area is really dependent upon the creative work the teachers are doing to change the way they teach,” said Palumbo.

The students keep the iPads until they graduate.

“All my notes are on here and papers going back to using papers just I can’t even imagine that,” said sophomore Jacqueline Montville.

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