An apple was once known as gift from student to teacher.

Now in the Uintah School District, digital apples are being placed in the hands of the middle school to high school students, in the form of Apple brand iPods and iPads.

As of the Dec. 13 Uintah School Board meeting, 500 iPads and 60 iPods were scheduled in all secondary schools. Eagle View Elementary was the first school to receive the iPads last fall.

“It’s a fun way to teach, said sixth grade teacher at Eagle View Justine Schwarz. “It’s in the moment of now, you can bring the world into the classroom.”

Students can only use the iPad only if their parents have signed a procedure form, and if they have good attendance, grades and behavior, Schwarz said about the policy at Eagle View.

“This is an incentive to make sure that all three are working together,” she said. “It’s been a great incentive for teaching responsibility too.”

If students do not complete one of the three requirements they will have to use a regular computer or just a pencil and paper.

“The iPads are much funner to use,” said fifth grader at Eagle View Eliza Poowegup.

Schwarz has observed, because the students don’t have to use a pencil and a paper they actually do the work.

“They are more on task,” she said. “If you walk into any of our classrooms and the iPads are out, you can hear a pin drop. The kids are so focused.”

The iPads are used for all subjects from math to history. Students have used the iPads as flashcard makers, to write their names in hieroglyphics, to study the stars, learn vocabulary, take notes, watch the news, and work out math problems.

Seventh grade students at Eagle View said math has become easier for them since using the chalkboard app on their iPads to figure out the problems.

With new technology comes intense training for not only the students but also for the teachers.

That’s why school district curriculum director Jayme Leyba insisted the school district hire a full-time technology coach, Kenny Mohar, to help the teachers.

“Here’s the dilemma, if you force technology on people, whether it’s students or teachers, some teachers will embrace it, for others it’s just one more thing added on,” Leyba said.

Mohar travels to classrooms around the district for one-on-one training, as well as holding scheduled after school workshops, where teachers who attend receive in-service credit.

“It’s a win-win when you have the teacher who’s saying, ‘yeah, I can do this,” Leyba said.

Eagle View Elementary received a Title I School Improvement Grant from the Utah State Office of Education for technology in the school. Part of that funding allowed the district to purchase 170 iPads and 60 iPods for that kindergarten through eighth grade school.

Nearly all fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students have an iPad to use all day, all will have them soon, Mohar said about Eagle View, and all third and fourth grade classrooms have a set of 10 iPods.

As for other schools in the district, Vernal Middle School has 80 iPads, Vernal Junior High School has 60 iPads, and Uintah High School has 190 iPads.

The overall funding for the iPads in the classroom isn’t cheap, each iPad averages $500, and each sync station, where the devices are plugged in, charged and locked away, costs around $3,000, Leyba said.

“There’s nothing inexpensive about this,” Leyba said. “My big fear is, if not done right, it’s just a toy, and if it’s just a toy, get rid of the technology and let’s just focus on teaching,”

His goal, depending on funding, would be to have students use iPads instead of regular textbooks.

Leyba said the nice thing about the iPads is a student can be reading an e-book, perform an in-class experiment, record it to video, and then add it to his textbook, and “now the textbook is a living document, it’s always moving, it’s always improving.”

“This is a new craze,” he said about the technology in the classroom, “and I hope it’s just not a craze.”