Kindergartener’s in Maine given iPad 2 tablets.

Teaching tools like crayons, finger paints and alphabet blocks are old school. iPad 2 tablets will be given to kindergarten students in Maine who will now learn their ABCs and 123s on the latest technology.

A school district in Auburn, Maine will dish out $200,000 to buy iPads for nearly 300 kindergarten pupils for the next school session starting around August this year. Apart from their alphabets and numbers, the kindergarten students will learn drawing and music on the hi-tech gadget through apps for phonics, building words, letter recognition and letter formation.

The iPad is a powerful education tool with hundreds of teaching applications, Superintendent Tom Morrill said in a Boston Globe report. “With its touchpad screen, it is simple to use and can bring learning to life with imagery and sounds. It’s a revolution in education,” he said.

The school board had last week unanimously approved the plan to give all kindergarteners iPads next fall. Maine had distributed Apple laptops to all seventh and eighth graders in 2002 and 2003, becoming the first state to equip students statewide with computers.

Photo credit: Childcare Support

Via Times of India