New Technology Coming to Heights Next Year

School Board approves juniors and seniors getting computers instead of IPads for the 2022-2021 school year.

Haven Blosser, Reporter

As a student goes through high school, writing assignments become more prominent, projects become larger and more in-depth, and doing all of these things on an IPad can be difficult. Many teachers and students believe transitioning from IPads to computers is a good decision. 

“I believe computers will allow students to create more detailed projects that have more depth. It’s hard to create on an IPad; although, IPads are good for consuming information,” Leslie Weishaar, library media specialist, said.

 After pressure from teachers, students, and parents, the decision was ultimately made that next school year juniors and seniors would receive computers. The following year freshman and sophomores will receive computers as well.

 While many seniors were not happy with this information, as they will graduate and will not have the chance to experience school with computers, those students who will receive computers next year were excited to hear this. 

“I’m excited and feel kind of special because it will be so much easier for photography and journalism to use photoshop, it will also be more organized than an IPad,” Parker Stroud, sophomore, said.

Many will argue that navigating assignments and multiple tabs is easier and more organized than an IPad. When researching things for essays and papers going from one screen to the next can be difficult.

“It’s so hard to have to close down one screen and open another when you could just have multiple tabs open on a computer,”  Julie Coulter, English teacher, said.

Coulter has been pushing for students to get computers for a long time, as she thinks writing, researching, and typing is more efficient on computers than IPads. She also argued that it will be more coherent with teachers because they have laptops. This way it’s ensured that students and teachers will be seeing assignments and essays in the same format.

“Now you guys aren’t the only school in the city with IPads and not laptops,” Coulter said.

The question is why are we the last school in Topeka to switch from IPads to computers. This is mainly because of financial resources and the fact that there were many other issues as well as changes this school year to deal with.  

“I’m extremely happy about the decision and I think this is the best decision for the students’ sake,” Coulter said.