Central Unified students to get Asus Android tablets

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Central Unified is preparing for a major technology upgrade next fall. Students at all grade levels will receive tablets which they can take home.

On Thursday the first group of teachers began their training on the new tablets. The process involves developing their own curriculum.

District teachers found the future of education at their fingertips. The touch screen training session was designed to prepare them to teach by tablet.

Teachers became students for the day - learning the new technology. Steinbeck Elementary schoolteacher Chris Gammel has taught for 31 years. She found the tablet fun but challenging.

Gammel explained, " Just navigating them. For example, how to make things bigger, how do you get things to turn around, how to make it most easy to use."

Some teachers in Central Unified already use tablets in class but now all of them are learning how to build their own curriculum into the software.

District Superintendent Mike Berg said kids today require a more engaged, interactive learning environment. "We bring curriculum to them that thinks with them, that responds to their responses that feeds back to them and then can move up or down depending on their learning ability."

Teachers at all grade levels will learn how to use the Asus Android tablets.

Polk Elementary School teacher Gurdeep Shergill said, "The biggest challenge pretty much learning the new skills because this is something new for a lot of the teachers since we're moving towards the technology part but with this wonderful training we'll make it happen."

A third of the families in Central Unified don't have internet access at home. Come fall of 2014 kids from kindergarten to high school will have take-home 4G tablets.

Berg said, "We talk not only about an achievement gap but an experiential gap. This closes that gap."

The district is clearly ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. Teachers said their students are already talking about the tablets they'll get next year.

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