The technology director at the school district in Mart, Texas, has put military hardware into the hands of all his high schools students, thanks to Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services and its Department of Defense Computers for learning program.
The district has about 525 students and John Luedke is its director of technology and library services.
Luedke says he and the school have participated in the program for about three years. “I have gotten about 400 laptops and a couple hundred iPads,” Luedke said. “I have it where 7th through 12th have access to either an iPad or laptop.”
It all started with an email.
“I got an email, I guess three plus years ago and it sounded interesting and it was something I had never heard of,” Luedke said. “So I read through the email, made a few phone calls, worked through the process and it took me a couple weeks to go through the process.”
In the end the school district joined the program and the students continue to reap the rewards. Recently he acquired more than 100 laptops from DLA Disposition Services.
To get the laptops ready for the students Luedke says he puts new hard drives in each of them and then loads educational software.
According to Luedke the hardest step in getting the laptops from the program ready for the students is removing all of the stickers that state that the hard drives have been removed. With a chuckle he said that DLA uses some good stickers.
Luedke said he has the newest batch of laptops ready now, waiting for the students to return to school in the fall.
Learn more about the Computers for Learning program.