Apple Donates iPads to Teach for America

Apple donated thousands of first-generation iPads, turned in by customers upgrading to the iPad 2, to 9,000 Teach for America Corps members. Photo: Flickr/rahego

Used first-generation iPads still fetch a fair price on the market – on electronic buy-back sites like Gazelle or for store credit at Amazon and Apple.

But Apple recently found a more altruistic way to reuse a number of first-generation iPads turned in by customers when they upgraded to the iPad 2. According to Fortune, the tech giant just donated thousands of iPads to members of the Teach for America Corps program, which places recent college graduates in teaching positions in the nation’s most impoverished public schools.

Apple launched the program this spring with the introduction of the iPad 2, inviting owners of working, but unwanted first-generation iPads to donate the tablets to teachers in low-income communities.

READ: First Generation iPads Are Being Resold, Not Recycled

While the number of iPads collected for this program is unknown, the magazine reported, every Teach for America member – more than 9,000 teachers in 38 states – was offered a free iPad 1 in August. Registration ended Aug. 31, and the iPads were distributed over the past two weekends.

One Teach for America member, who teaches in a New York elementary charter school, told Gotham Schools that he has already put the new iPad to use, creating a system to track one student’s behavior.

“I have a student who has not responded particularly well to our classroom behavior system, and I am creating a different system for him where we track all the positive things he does,” he said.

The teacher is also using the tablet as an incentive for the student to behave properly.

“He can use my iPad at the end of the day if he meets his goal,” he said.