In June, we covered a $30 million contract that the Los Angeles school district signed with Apple to deploy 35,000 iPads for education purposes. The devices would cost $678 each and come bundled with several different educational applications. It is an ambitious move and shows how the tablets could play a major role in the future of schooling at all levels.
According to the TabTimes, the original report would have made this one of the single largest tablet deployments in the educational world. However, there is evidence to show that the number of 35,000 iPads may have been greatly underestimated.
CITEworld has an interview with Mark Hovatter, the chief facilities executive for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), in which he said the initial news was just phase one of a plan that will see all 640,000 students, grade K-12, will receive an iPad by late 2014. On top of that, a number of textbooks will now be distributed in the digital form.
"The most important thing is to try to prepare the kids for the technology they are going to face when they are going to graduate," said Hovatter. "This is phase one, a mix of high school, middle school, and elementary students. We're targeting kids who most likely don't have their own computers or laptops or iPads. Their only exposure to computers now is going to be in their schools."
This shows the power of the iPad and how it is changing the world. Companies of all sizes can follow suit with the help of an IT consulting firm that specializes in iPad deployments.
