Back To School: Hamptons Elementary School Teaches With iPad 2

[Photo via] Say good bye to the 20 pound backpacks of big textbooks this school year, kids. Sixth grade just got a hell of a lot cooler as the Southampton School District is trying to replace as many dusty big books with snazzy iPads. The teachers are testing out a trial run with the iPad 2 and the sixth grade curriculum. The grade's core classes will have 110 iPads available and the high school will receive 60 new Lenovo ThinkPad T420 laptops.

Julieanne Purcell, the district's director of technology noted how outdated hardcover textbooks quickly become and how "you can't highlight or take notes, or quickly get the definition of an unfamiliar word within it," she told 27East.

The new app style textbooks available on the iPad "are completely interactive with audio and video recordings, and questions located within the reading are just a click away," she said "providing the ultimate reading experience." She's confident that replacing textbooks correctly with the iPad will improve student achievement. Sounds like a cool tech girl to me.

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And even better, money doesn't appear to be an issue here. But they may be involving the parents to help with warranty and repair costs based off Westhampton Beach School District's recommendation that "when parents are involved, students tend to take better care of the devices."

Man, I want to be a sixth grader this year.