HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – More than 17,000 laptops are being unpacked, imaged and inventoried Thursday July 12, 2012 for the Huntsville City Schools Computer Initiative. (The Huntsville Times/Glenn Baeske)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — In a Madison County warehouse, Huntsville school employees are spending their days surrounded by stacks of laptops reaching near the ceiling.
The school district is in the midst of one of the largest projects in its history — processing more than 22,000 laptops and iPads as part of Superintendent Casey Wardynski’s plan to digitize students’ learning. Students will also begin using digital textbooks this fall.
Brian Blackmon, a consultant with Lean Frog and project manager for the district’s one-to-one computer initiative, said Thursday that district staff and contract workers are processing an average of 1,000 computers a day to be ready for the Aug. 20 start of school.
“We are doing everything here from receiving the computers off the truck to putting them into the hands of the kids,” Blackmon said.
About 9,000 of the 17,200 Hewlett-Packard computers the district has leased or bought had been processed by the end of the work week on Friday. Another 5,060 iPads had already been processed and were ready for shipment to the schools.
Kindergartners through third-graders will receive iPads. Fourth- through 12th-graders will have laptops.
via Huntsville district preparing more than 22,000 laptops, iPads for new school year | al.com.
