St. Paul's students with ThinkPad laptops. (Courtesy of Morgan Berney)
MOBILE, Alabama -- When classes start next month at St. Paul's Episcopal School, the fifth- and sixth-graders will have very light backpacks, and some students may not carry them at all.
They're going to spend the school year learning on laptops only, without using physical textbooks.
Officials at the private, K-12 school have been moving in this direction for several years now. The youngest students routinely use iPads, and students in the upper grades are well-accustomed to using laptops in class.
But this will be the first time that the school will have two entire grades -- about 180 children -- using laptops exclusively for classwork and homework.
Each student will be assigned a Lenovo ThinkPad, with a Microsoft-based curriculum, said Scott McDonald, assistant headmaster. The ThinkPads will have styluses and touch screens, which will make them easy to use in all types of lessons, he said.
The fee for the digital devices will be included in regular school fees, and the costs for parents will be about the same as for those who must buy textbooks for their children, McDonald said.
Next May, the students will turn the ThinkPads back in to school officials, so that the devices can be reprogrammed and updated for the following year, McDonald said.
St. Paul's faculty members have been working continually on the digital learning project for at least two years, he said.
The idea is to expand students' critical thinking skills, and to offer a variety of options to help children who learn in different ways.
For example, a student who is more of a visual learner may be able to comprehend a lesson more thoroughly if she is given a video to watch on her digital device, instead of being asked to listen to a lecture.
In addition, McDonald said, teachers have the advantage of being able to tailor the virtual lessons more closely to their classroom needs. Often, much of the material in a thick, expensive textbook goes unused, he said, and in any case, many textbooks quickly become outdated.
With a digital curriculum that will be regularly updated, those problems will go by the wayside.
"There are so many outstanding learning resources that are being updated daily," McDonald said. "We can constantly update our materials."
Oh yes, and there's one more advantage: No more heavy backpacks.
"The days of seeing a 90-lb. fifth-grader carrying a 75-lb. backpack -- those days are gone," McDonald said.
"We're going to do everything we can to provide a better educational environment for our kids."