HARTFORD, Conn. — For incoming freshmen at western Connecticut’s suburban Brookfield High School, hefting a backpack weighed down with textbooks is about to give way to tapping out notes and flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad tablet computer.
While iPads have rocketed to popularity on college campuses since Apple Inc. introduced the device in 2010, many secondary schools this fall will move toward tablet computers.
Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have launched what are called “one-to-one” programs, in which each student in at least one classroom receives an iPad to use throughout the school day.
Nearly two-thirds of them have begun since July, according to Apple.
At Burlington High in Boston, principal Patrick Larkin calls the $500 iPads a better long-term investment.
“I don’t want to generalize because I don’t want to insult people who are working hard to make those resources,” Larkin said of textbooks, “but they’re pretty much outdated the minute they’re printed and certainly by the time they’re delivered. The bottom line is that the iPads will give our kids a chance to use much more relevant materials.”
