Last year senior Sydney Rissler walked the hallways in pain. With so many text books in her bag, her back was constantly bothering her.
This issue inspired her to ask her parents for an iPad, to eliminate the number of notebooks she would have to carry around school.
To bring her own iPad to school, Rissler had to receive approval from all of her teachers. English teacher, Sarah Wessling had a positive reaction to Rissler using her personal iPad at school.
“I thought this will be a great chance for me to see how she is using it and it could give me insight to how the whole class could use it,” Wessling said.
Now that the school is providing students with iPads, Sydney will have to replace her own with a new one.
“It’s kind of annoying because I have all my notes on the iPad I currently use,” Rissler said.
But she still hopes that giving each student an iPad is beneficial for them and the school as a whole.
When Sydney first started using her iPad at school second semester of her junior year, it was a significant change.
“The weirdest part is that the iPads are smaller than a regular piece of paper, so it feels like you don’t have enough space, but you actually have an infinite supply,” Rissler said.
Sydney uses the app Notes Shelf for all of her notes. It allows her to use her stylist to write things for math and science, but it also has the function of typing.
The app allows you to make multiple notebooks so you can have a different one for each class, as well as folders.
“I don’t have to remember to bring all these notebooks home, it’s just my iPad.”
Although Rissler is very familiar with iPads, she still has a few questions.
Because you cannot have notes open on your iPad while the book is open, it would be impossible to view something like a math problem in the textbook, while solving it on the notes app.
Rissler would rather have the physical books and do the notes on the iPad, instead of having to waste paper with a notebook.
“It’s still a toll and its presence alone won’t change the teaching and learning,” Wessling said, “The teachers and students will need to do that.”
Rissler recognizes that giving every student an iPad is all new and but hopes it all works out well.
“There will probably be kinks first semester,” Rissler said. “No one is going to know how to use them right away, there is a learning curve for everyone.”
