Students learn differently now than they used to and technology is becoming part of education strategies more and more all the time.

The Perry School District has just under 2,000 students enrolled currently, and technology director Rich Nichols says all of them, regardless of grade level, have access to technology.

“In our district we have 1,464 computers and out of all of those computers, 99 percent of them are PCs and we have maybe 20-30 Macs” says Nichols.

While the district has not implemented the 1-to-1 program that others in Iowa have, a program where each student is assigned a laptop or tablet computer, there ratio is still close to the same.

“Right now district wide we’re at about 1-to-7 students per computer.  At the middle school we’re very close.  We’re at about 1-to-1.  My guess is if we got about 100 more laptops we would have enough laptop computers for a 1-to-1 in that building” adds Nichols.

And Nichols says the type of technology needed in each classroom differs greatly.  He says the special education and science classrooms use iPads for various tasks, where the language arts department uses more PCs.

Nichols says he thinks tablets and touch screen devices are the future of consumer computers and the district continues to look and see what is best for the students and staff in Perry.