Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, Princeton, announced that it will provide every girl in its middle and upper schools, grades 7 – 12, with an iPad for the 2011-2012 school year.

The positive impact of the iPad on learning was established when Stuart put iPads in the hands of faculty beginning November 2010 and students in January 2011. Giving every student her own device — commonly referred to as “one- to-one computing” — is a dramatic step in Stuart’s blended approach to technology integration; one of the key components in the vision of Dr. Patty Fagin, head of the school, of a 21st century global education. Teachers in pre-school through grade six will have access to iPad carts, and laptops and computer labs will continue to be used for other instructional needs. Although the use of iPads will reduce the demand for laptops, teacher requests for all computing devices continue to escalate each year. To help fund this growing need, some of the proceeds from Stuart’s Spring Auction 2011 will go to supplement the laptop and iPad carts that are used by the whole school.

“We are convinced that one-to-one computing in the middle and upper school will be a game changer,” said Fagin, “bringing our girls into the 21st Century and revolutionizing faculty’s ability to differentiate, innovate, and help students create in new and exciting ways.”

In a recent article on 21st Century learning, Fagin detailed the importance of being technologically literate. Head of middle school, Robert Missonis agrees, “Stuart is proud to join some of the best schools in the country who have adopted this practice. Use of the iPads allow us to access limitless information on the internet. Through video conferencing we will connect with experts throughout the world. All of this capacity will be in the palm of the student’s hands.”

The thorough research of Stuart’s staff led to the choice of iPads for several reasons including: user friendliness, long battery life, ease of collaboration and information sharing, and durability and cost.

Eighth grade student Kate Yazujian responded enthusiastically to the announcement, “The iPad has been very helpful in math class. Instead of using paper and pencil to graph quadratic equations, there is an app that makes it less tedious and time consuming. I was able to understand the point of the lesson more quickly and could do things like move the integers to see how the change to one variable dramatically changes the appearance of the parabola. Kate’s friend, fellow eighth grade student Emily Kolb chimed in, “We saved a lot of paper using the iPad, which is better for the environment. I also like using the Saundry Notes app for taking notes in class. It’s quicker, so I was less distracted and spent more time listening to the teacher.”