Traditionally, students have been told in class to look up information in their textbooks and are forbidden from using their cell phones, but one school in Simsbury, Conn., is breaking all traditions and seeing how it can break into the overpowering digital age.

At first glance, the first grade class at St. Mary’s School looks like any other classroom, but at second glance, there are no textbooks, planners or notebooks to be seen. Instead, each student has an iPad to complete and receive school assignments on. Students use it for multiple tasks within the classroom and think of it as part of their ordinary day, like they would when using a pencil to take notes, complete tests, etc.

The school made this movement after many long discussions of evaluating the current educational structure and talking about how the school could make learning more relevant for students in the digital age. Money was raised by the school’s silent auction this past year to fund the project. The school states that the students, ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade, are embracing the new direction the school is taking and its different mode of transportation of learning, meaning it is geared toward different types of learners and learning styles.

Breaking tradition can be a good change, but with this sudden urge to reconstruct the educational system, will it work? Will replacing a long-lasting tradition of textbooks with iPads be helpful to the classroom atmosphere and help the students learn?

It feels like society has been taken over by technology and we can’t even focus on the important things in life. I think the digital age is letting people drown in an age of sleek, new equipment.

It seems that once people get used to an iPhone or any means of technology, the next updated version comes out. New technology is produced and used on an everyday basis.

For example, iPhones have multiple resources, such as texting and email, all in one place for me, but should a phone really consume every minute of every day? It should not, but the sad truth is that it sometimes does.

By adding iPads to the classrooms and taking out the old-fashioned textbooks, schools are allowing the digital age to take over. Look at the technology distractions now in a classroom. Would giving students iPads just give them an additional distraction besides their phone?

First graders have no need for iPads. What happened to first graders being busy playing with toys and playing dress up? Society is advancing way too much for first graders to be using iPads and not focusing on basics. If the digital age continues to consume society, then there will be no time to enjoy the outdoors and people will instead view scenes of nature through a flat screen of an iPad.