Changes to standardized testing have Eastern Pulaski Elementary School updating its technology. The school board Monday approved the purchase of 100 Chromebooks for third, fourth, and fifth graders, according to Superintendent Dan Foster. “They have some iPads, about five or six per classroom right now,” he explains. “But the new ILEARN, which is going to replace the ISTEP, has more student typing for answers, and so we wanted to get some devices in the students’ hands [designed for] a little bit more typing.”
Foster says that if the new devices work well at the elementary school, the corporation may also consider switching to Chromebooks at the middle and high schools. “We’re about a year or so away from a major refresh at the middle school/high school for devices, and we currently use iPads,” he says. “So we thought it would be nice to have these Chromebooks at the elementary, to kind of see how they hold up and what repairs we have to do and that kind of stuff.”
Eastern Pulaski will buy the 100 Lenovo 500e Chromebooks, three carts, and the necessary software licenses from vendor CDW, for a total cost of more than $34,000.
