Hillsborough Schools Incorporate Technology into Learning

By Meghan Scarpiello

There was a story in the news,recently about  a school in Hillsborough ,New Jersey having incorporated technology into their classrooms for students of all ages. There was a panel discussion with attendees from more than 25 districts, middle school students, and high school students to discuss the benefits of integrating Nexus tablets and Chromebooks into the classrooms. Hillsborough had distributed 2,800 Nexus tablets to all of their kindergarten through fourth grade students in their district. There are also Chromebooks available for the students and teachers to use. Majority of the Chromebooks, 4,600 of them, were distributed to students in fifth  through twelfth grade for their use at home and at school.

Hillsborough started  trying to incorporate these devices during the 2011-2012 school year in algebra 1 courses and since have grown. The following school year the devices  accommodated at least 10 percent of the fifth-twelfth grade population. The third year the Chromebook accounted for  20 percent of the fifth-twelfth grade population. Finally this year, every student was able to have access to their own Chromebook. The school district hopes that having a 1:1 ratio of student to technology means that having technology will become more of a normalcy  of learning in the classroom.

This is an example of how technology is beginning to truly make an impact at school and at home. The school district is trying to expose students to these new styles of learning and use them to benefit higher learning. There is also no discrimination for students who may or may not be able to afford this type of technology on their own because the schools are providing it and using it as a special tool. Over time I believe this will be seen more  in many school districts. After more districts become comfortable with the new technology integration, there will be  more and more data coming out about how well technology really is working as a tool in the classroom as well as at home to complete schoolwork.