(ORANGE BEACH, Ala.) - Orange Beach Elementary School announced Friday that students dozens of its students will receive new take home laptops.
Orange Beach Elementary Principal Lori Brocato said all fourth, fifth and sixth grade students will use Apple MacBooks instead of standard textbooks. Brocato said the move was made possible thanks to a donation of nearly $300,000 by the Erie Meyer Foundation.
"We are preparing them to be successful in a global society, and we have changed their world today," Brocato said. "Gulf Shores Elementary Schools implemented MacBooks this year, Gulf Shores Middle School and Gulf Shores High School. And our students, unfortunately, did not have the funding here."
"We never stopped trying, and our board chairman, Angie Swiger, she has worked tirelessly to make this vision a reality."
Brocato said the school will receive the new MacBooks in six weeks. By January 2013, the MacBooks will also include Rosetta-Stone Language Learning Software, which will allow students to learn up to 37 different languages.
After two decades of teaching kids with books, pencils and paper, fourth grade teacher Rhonda Mosley said she is ready for the new wave of teaching tools.
"21 years ago I would have never dreamed that we would have computers in the classroom for the children to actually work on themselves," Mosley said. "We're still pinching ourselves. We're really excited over that. The children are really excited they're going to have their own laptops."
