Now that the Knoxville School Board has authorized the purchase of iPads to replace the district’s stock of laptop computers for students, the staff’s attention is turning towards collecting up the old units and readying the new ones for the fall term.

District Business Manager Craig Mobley says Apple will be getting the new iPads to them in the next few weeks, and personnel from the company will be working with the school district to get the right apps and programs into them; teachers will get theirs before the end of the school year, while students will receive theirs in the fall.

Some of the remaining laptops will be kept in service, even though some of them are as much as nine years old; Mobley tells KNIA/KRLS News they’ll be collected at the end of the school year as always, and refurbished to supplement the new supply of iPads.

“We’ll go through those laptops, pick out probably the best at least ninety right now to have three carts of those laptops available for students when they come back in the fall. Also, setting up all the student one-to-one devices so that when students come back in the fall, all the way from West Elementary to the high school we’ll have those iPads available for them to use,” Mobley says.

The laptops will be reserved for specialized uses and assigned to departments, teachers or students as needed. Many of the oldest ones are at Northstar Elementary, and those will be decommissioned.

Mobley says the iPads will have Bluetooth capability, which will enable students to use keyboards when required; a supply of those will be available as well, although not on a one-to-one basis.

For more on the introduction of these new iPads, tune in to today’s edition of Let’s Talk Knoxville.