At Vicksburg’s Catholic Schools, input from young alumni is leading to major technology improvements.

Vicksburg Catholic School officials were able to gather data from its young alumni via a survey concerning the strengths and weaknesses of their academic programs, including how well the college preparatory school actually fulfilled its mission of readying students for college.

St. Aloysius High School Principal Dr. Buddy Strickland said while the school got mostly positive feedback, one of the areas across the board college-age alumni felt they could have been more prepared for was working with technology.

“Their comments started the ball rolling, and we realized we’re not doing enough for our young people,” he said.

To combat this, the school is beginning a one-to-one Digital Learning Initiative, a program designed to get MacBooks in the hands of high school and junior high school students and iPads in the hands of elementary school students.

“It is a fact education is moving toward digital technology, and education needs to change because the way students learn is changing,” school officials said in a release. “What is necessary now is knowing how to utilize and leverage the vast supply of information available to students and how to appropriately use and share this information. These are requisite skills students now need as they prepare for college and for life.”

Phase I of the project, which is slated to begin sometime this spring semester, will focus on training teachers to use the devices, and 55 MacBooks will be purchased for student use. In addition, 30 MacBooks will be purchased for high school and junior high school students, and 60 iPads will be used by elementary students as teachers implement digital lessons.

Phase II of the project, which is expected to take place in the fall semester of the 2016-17 school year, will fully implement the one-to-one aspect of the program. Each high school and junior high student will receive a MacBook, meaning the school will purchase 265 of the Apple laptops. An additional 30 iPads will be purchased for the elementary school, providing a ratio of one iPad for every three students.

“This is going to totally transform what we do,” Strickland said.

Strickland said in the future, students will have up to date, digital textbooks on each child’s device for $14.99 per textbook, per year. He added this includes embedded video and other supplemental features.

“The most exciting part is that we have an app from Apple that allows my teachers to build their own textbooks,” he said. “It’s really going to make a transformational change in what we do here.”

Every three years the school will be able to return the equipment to Apple in exchange for new, updated devices.

“Everyone is really excited about the devices, but it’s not about the device,” he said. “That’s just a tool.”

Strickland said Apple was chosen over Microsoft devices after they surveyed colleges about which type of device they recommend for incoming freshmen.

“The response was overwhelmingly Apple,” he said. “The universities said the capabilities of that device are greater than that of Microsoft devices. There’s also less viruses and less malware that are targeted at Apple devices.”

The total funding for the projects is projected to come in at more than half a million dollars, which will be funded through a gift from the Diocese and a fee applied to all students.

The Diocese is giving $136,640 to fund Phase I. To fund Phase II, a $19 monthly fee will be tacked on to students’ tuition.

The total cost of both phases is $543,451.