Hamilton public school board planning to swap student iPads for laptops
Students entering Grade 9 at Hamilton public high schools this September can expect to be issued laptop computers rather than iPad tablets for online learning.
A revised 21st-Century learning strategy unanimously endorsed by trustees on the board's program committee proposes to phase in laptops as the standard school-issued digital device for all secondary students over the next five years, starting with Grade 9.
Students in Grades 4 to 8 will meanwhile get classroom kits of six laptops in the 2026-27 school year. Until then, they will continue to get iPad kits.
The revised strategy, which must still be approved by the full board of trustees, will also provide kits of three iPads for kindergarten classes and six iPads for classes in Grades 1 to 3 at high-priority schools in areas with greater socioeconomic challenges.
Superintendent Bill Torrens said the switch to laptops - already provided to all teachers - reflects a survey on educator and student preferences as well as actual usage and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said online learning platforms are far more integrated into the classroom than when the strategy was launched in 2014 under the moniker Transforming Learning Everywhere. It's now being renamed Learning for Tomorrow.
(The strategy) really prepares us for the future," Torrens said, adding the changeover isn't expected to increase the current budget for digital devices.
It gives us the tools that educators and students, our learners, need and they want to match the tasks they want to complete academically."
A December survey's results included in a staff report show teachers in Grades 1 to 3 preferred iPads for student use by almost a three to one margin, while those in Grades 4 and up favoured laptops.
Among students, those in Grades 4 to 6 preferred laptops by a small margin, although nearly 40 per cent indicated it didn't matter which device they use. Laptops were the clear favourite in Grades 7 to 12.
Torrens said although high school students will now get laptops, they will still have access to iPads for subjects like media arts and physical education where they are easier to use for creating videos or recording performances.
But he said the overall switch to laptops in higher grades acknowledges they are better for longer written assignments than iPads, which are issued with separate keyboards.
Committee chair Becky Buck praised the new strategy for representing student and staff input while also offering flexibility in matching devices to tasks.
Logically speaking, writing out papers on a tablet would have been a significant challenge, and so particularly during school lockdowns or moving to remote, away from in-person learning, that could have been a big limitation for some," she said.
We're pivoting to a place where I think we're really meeting the needs and getting our students prepared for life beyond our walls."