MIDDLEBURY — Northridge High School could be the next Elkhart County public school to implement one-to-one computing.

Northridge Principal Gerald Rasler gave a report to the Middlebury School Board at its meeting Tuesday afternoon about the possibility of getting technology in the hands of every student in the school.

Rasler told the board that the high school began looking at one-to-one computing last year and developed a committee to review options, asking teachers what they wanted in a machine and visiting area school districts with one-to-one computing already in place.

Administrators are still considering how to implement the program and the best way to pay for the program. The school board has yet to approve a plan to carry out any kind of one-to-one program, but Superintendent Jim Conner said he envisions the devices being distributed to students sometime next fall.

Rasler told the board that at this point, the committee would recommend getting laptops for all high school students and teachers, not tablets or other technological devices.

He pointed out that the committee would prefer to get laptops to all high school students, unlike grade-by-grade like Goshen High School is doing, because of so many classes that have students from multiple grade levels.

Conner pointed out that heavily using laptops for school work better prepares students for college and that the school corporation would likely pay for the machines with textbook rental fees and from the capital projects fund. Some school board members also pointed out that some classes already have textbooks on CD-ROMs and that students access class work via Moodle, an online course management system.

“We live in a digital world now and that’s how our kids operate on a day-to-day basis,” Rasler told the board

Rasler said there would likely be between 1,500 and 1,600 at the high school next year.

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