Tag: ibooks

Some 2,500 students in Pittsfield and North Adams middle schools in Massachusetts will get Apple iBooks as part of a new laptop pilot program expected to cost US$5.4 million over three years. “The Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative is modeled after a larger program begun in Maine in 2002 and credited with inspiring students to learn needed skills for the future work force… Spearheaded by former state Rep. Peter J.

by Dennis Sellers – St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School in Memphis, Tennessee, is an iBook-intensive campus with close to 1,000 of the portables, as well as other Mac systems. The Apple hardware and software has won rave reviews from the staff, students and parents. “We’re through with our first semester, and everything has gone wonderfully,” Bobby Ireland, IT director (and varsity soccer coach), told MacMinute. “We use a combination of Airport Extremes and original AirPort Base Stations for our wireless coverage and we have several flat panel iMacs.

The Mercury News reports that 1,100 students at Gunderson High School in San Jose, California, were recently given Apple iBooks as part of a US$6 million program. “In education-speak, this is the first step of a ‘vertical slice’ program. The laptops cost the district about $1,360 each. The rest of the funds go to expenses like insurance, infrastructure, training and software — and eventually, more computers.

Minnesota’s Stillwater board of education has approved a plan to give every junior high student in the district an iBook to use at home and school, “despite requests from dozens of angry parents to delay the decision,” reports the Pioneer Press. On Monday, the board approved a five-year, US$2.85 million lease agreement with Apple to provide the laptops. The iBooks will go to about 2,270 students and 135 staff members at Oak-Land and Stillwater junior high schools by next fall.

Ohio’s Beachwood Middle School will be equipping every student and teacher with an iBook when classes start this year. The 240 students and 40 teachers will use the laptops for class-related work at school and home, according to the Plain Dealer Reporter. “Apple seems to be more user-friendly for our kids,” said Edward Bernetich, principal of the new school.

Greene County, North Carolina leaders have approved a four-year lease agreement that will provide more than 1,715 Apple iBooks to every middle and high school student, at a cost of US$3.23 million. Students and teachers at four Oak Ridge, Tennessee elementary schools will also have new iBooks when school resumes in August. The school district approved a four-year lease for 425 of the laptops, at $200,617 a year.