In Marathon City, kids are using personalized, hands on technologies to learn in a new way.

"It really allowed us to bring our philosophy of kids working at their own pace and understanding kids at an individual level but still connecting to a community," says 7th grade English/Language Arts teacher Mia Chmiel.

It's part of the district's new charter middle school: Marathon Venture Academy. Each student is issued an iPad to use in all their classes.. all year long. Teachers say the new technology has gotten kids engaged in learning at their own pace and level.

And students say it really helps them get more interested in the work they do.

"Just like better to work on projects and stuff with one thing instead of all different sorts of paper," says 7th grade student Hayley Kroeplin.

As technology continues changing, teachers say education needs to evolve too to meet the needs of a more tech savvy generation of students.

"They're becoming dependent on individualized needs so this tool allows us to meet those needs," says Chmiel.

Teachers say a charter school grant allowed the school to pay for the iPads.