MONTREAL — Students starting at Bialik High School this fall will have a new kind of supply in their backpacks: an iPad.

All students entering Grade 7, as well as grades 8 and 9, are each being given the Apple computer tablet and will use it throughout their school day.

Grade 10 and 11 students will continue to use the laptops that were introduced at the school in 2005.

The innovation is being shepherded by Maureen Baron, the new chief educational and administrative director of Bialik and its elementary division, Jewish People’s and Peretz Schools (JPPS).

The veteran educator is an expert in educational technology who most recently worked as a consultant to the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) on information and communications technologies. Since 1999, she’s been a lecturer at McGill University’s education faculty in educational technology.

Bialik teachers have been receiving training in how integrate the iPad into their classrooms since June.

Baron said the tablets will be used for “just in time” learning, not note-taking or other word processing. They’re intended as a tool, not a toy, and parents aren’t being charged extra for them, Baron said.

“They may be used in every class, whether for the whole period or just 10 minutes, or the teacher may decide not to use them at all [some days],” said Baron, whose position is a new one. She is, effectively, the professional head of JPPS/Bialik.

For the last three years, Baron has been a consultant to the EMSB, training teachers in this modern pedagogical aid. “There are very few [EMSB] schools where the students have it [yet],” she said. “We [JPPS/Bialik] have gone the next step.” Other schools boards in Quebec and Canada that have implemented tablet learning, she added.

“There are many studies that show that [the iPad] has a positive impact on student learning,” said Baron, who has master’s degree in educational technology and is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal (her dissertation is on cyber-bullying.) She works closely there with Thierry Karsenti, Canada Research Chair in educational information and communications technology.

In addition to being smaller and lighter than a laptop, the iPads are well suited to the numerous mobile applications developed for Quebec’s prescribed curriculum.

With their ease of use, students will be encouraged to “create their own learning,” she said.

The laptops will be phased out.

Baron was hired for the new post after a “global search process,” said search committee co-chair, board member and parent Selina Itkowitz. A U.S.-based headhunter turned up at least 200 prospects, Itkowitz said, but in the end, no one either wanted the job or was considered suited to the particular circumstances of a Jewish school in Quebec.

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JPPS/Bialik then hired a local search firm, eventually zeroing in on Baron, who said, “I literally applied at the 11th hour, two hours before the search was to close.”

Baron has experience in Jewish day schools: she was the educational technology director at United Talmud Torahs from 2003 to 2006. Her two daughters went to Hebrew Foundation School in Dollard des Ormeaux, and the younger one went to Herzliah High School.

Baron herself attended JPPS’s afternoon school back when such a program existed. She began her career as a teacher with the now-defunct Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal.

Baron’s technological expertise made her an especially desirable choice, Itkowitz said. Embracing this new mode of teaching and learning was one of four priorities identified by the board, after a year-long consultation with stakeholders.

Itkowitz, described JPPS/Bialik as “on a new path” after years of enrolment decline, financial woes and the uncertainty that followed the failure of the Federation CJA-backed merger of JPPS/Bialik and UTT/Herzliah.

It’s hoped the appointment of Baron, who works with the two principals, Adina Matas at JPPS, and Ken Scott at Bialik, will bring stability after high administrative turnover in recent years.

JPPS/Bialik had a total enrolment of close to 700 this year, said Itkowitz, who could not provide a figure for the new school year, which begins Aug. 26, because registration is still being finalized.

“We have the mission, the vision and the values… the [enrolment] will come,” Itkowitz said.

Baron will also oversee other significant innovations. STIM (Sciences, Technologie, Ingeniérie, Mathématiques) is being introduced this fall at JPPS. This enriched science program, based on a U.S. model, will be taught entirely in French and is compulsory for all grades.

This extra French instruction, on top of the provincial minimum, responds to demand from parents, who also wanted more science-oriented teaching, Itkowitz said. Baron herself is fluent in French.

Bialik is also in the process of being certified to offer an international baccalaureate (IB) program for a limited number of students starting in September 2014. It will be the first Jewish school in Montreal to offer the program, which is certified according to rigorous standards by a Swiss-based educational foundation.

About 20 Grade 7 students are expected to be selected in the inaugural year. They’ll have to undertake year-long personal projects that exemplify humanitarianism and an openness to the world.

At the EMSB, Baron developed technology and professional development for the IB programs the board runs at some of its schools.

There’s also been a major overhaul of the high school Jewish studies curriculum.

This year, a Jewish Culture and Civilization course is being inaugurated in grades 7 and 8, with the other three grades being included next year.

Developed by a committee of school educators, with advice from Rabbi Reuben Poupko, the new curriculum aims to instill “the values and ideas which have traditionally been associated with the collective Jewish experience as a people.”

The course will integrate the previously separate classes in Jewish history, Tanach, Hebrew, traditions, as well as Yiddish and Sephardi culture.

JPPS/Bialik is one of the few Jewish schools anywhere still teaching Yiddish. As of this year, students will no longer choose between Hebrew and Yiddish because both are part of the new course.

Also high on Baron’s agenda is preparation for the school’s 100th anniversary in 2014. A series of year-long events are being planned.