Rock Hill Supt.: iPads may not be the best choice for high schoolers

Earlier this year, Rock Hill School District Three’s Board of Trustees green-lighted a plan to roll out iPads on a one-to-one basis to students in grades four through eight.

The program, commonly known as iRock, initially called for all students to receive the tablet devices, but budget concerns led the board to scale back the plan for this school year.

Now, the district’s interim superintendent, John Taylor, says iPads might not be the best option for high school students, citing the different needs in the classroom.

“It’s more about how the students are going to use them — the word processing capabilities, the kind of product’s they’re going to be producing, whether iPads tare the best vehicle for that,” Taylor said on WRHI’s Straight Talk. “Some of my initial input that I’ve been hearing from other places is that maybe it’s not.”

In the neighboring Clover School District, students in grades Kindergarten through eight are using the iPads in a pilot program now, and will be issued the devices on a one-to-one basis starting in the 2014-2015 school year. High school students, district spokesman Mychal Frost said, will be issued a MacBook Air. Those devices are full computers smaller than the size of a traditional laptop computer.

Taylor said the major question that has yet to be answered is what device is best supported by current and future high school curriculum.

“There are places that are using iPads all the way up,” Taylor said. “We’ll be discussing which is the most appropriate.”