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PACKWOOD, IOWA -- Pekin students are all about the technology.

The school district distributed laptops Monday to all ninth through 12^th grade students.

Superintendent John Dotson said the new technology levels the playing field for students from both wealthy and not-so-wealthy families.

“For some families, this will be the first computer they’ve ever had in their homes,” he said.

It also allows the students to learn similarly to how they play.

“They've got the world at their fingertips using these computers,” said Dotson. “It's going to allow the kids to learn content at a deeper level. They're going to take more ownership in their learning because it's more fun. They can do more things.”

The students are also excited.

“It helps to have them in class,” said Senior Torie Hollingsworth. “When you need something right away, you can get online just then and look it up. It's a big help to not have to take the entire class to the library to look something up or to do a project. And, I believe it will help when we start getting more projects to go home and [we’ll] be able to do a PowerPoint on the laptop that [we’re] going to be using in class, whereas it was kind of difficult to do it at home and get it back to school.”

The school is participating in a pilot-project, in which they have downloaded two courses’ textbooks onto the laptops. Superintendent Dotson says some classes will go completely digital, but he cannot see the school ever getting rid of textbooks completely.

Two years ago, when Dotson worked for a different school district, he started Iowa’s first 1:1 laptop initiative. This year, 40 districts throughout the state have incorporated laptops into their curriculum on some level.

The money for the laptops did not have to be taken from the school’s general fund, and the only cost to the students was a $35 insurance fee, in order to take the technology off of school property.