iPads Come to Saint Pat's Classrooms

Students at St. Patrick School will be given a special new tool this school year.

St. Patrick's was selected by the Paterson Diocese to be one of five schools for iPads to be given to students in grades six through eight--nearly 350 students in all.

“We want our students to be highly competitive,” said John Fanelli, Assistant Superintendent of Technology for the Diocese of Paterson, “Not just in New Jersey, but globally.”

According to the diocese, St. Michael Elementary School of Netcong hosted a pilot program in the 2011-12 school year. Students in the eighth grade used iPads, and staff members noticed students reacted with more intensity towards their studies, which led the Diocese to expand its “iPad Project” to other schools.

“This generation reacts to the iPad much more easily than to the traditional textbook. It engages them, simply because of the exciting array of multimedia,” Fanelli said. “Kids understand technology much more than their parents do and can learn from it.”

Other schools included in this program for the 2012-13 school year are Assumption School of Morristown, St. Pius X School of Montville and St. Anthony School of Hawthorne. St. Michael School of Netcong will expand the program to students in the sixth and seventh grades.

Most of the funds for the project came through donations, and a portion came from state grants. Most of the donations have gone towards support of hardware, training, and software. 

Teachers pent the summer creating new lesson plans and became acquainted with all the features of the iPad.