Third grade ain’t what it used to be, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in Deborah Hammett’s class at the Oak Bluffs School, where four state-of-the art iPads arrived this week, thanks to a $2,500 grant from Comcast. The grant was given to support classes that use technology in their work.

What, you might ask, will third graders do with iPads? Lots of things, as it turns out.

“They do Google Docs presentations,” explained Mrs. Hammett. “They communicate with each other through Google Docs, they download videos, they do research, they do video editing, they do math practice sites, LA [language arts] practice sites, they play games — interactive games. Today they started taking notes on the notepad. Just now I’m downloading some readers on the iPads so they will be able to read literature . . . the opportunities are endless.”

To win the grant, the class filmed a five-minute video on a flip camera sent by Comcast; the subject was “How does your class utilize technology?” In the film they showed how they already do most of their homework and some school work online and paperless.

Mrs. Hammett and the kids were enthusiastic when the iPads arrived on Tuesday.

“It’s been a really fun day around here,” she said on Tuesday after an unveiling ceremony.

Mrs. Hammett said the project underscores the important role technology will play in the lives of the students down the road.

“They are going to have to be creative problem solvers who can collaborate and communicate so . . . the more they are aware of the technologies that allow them to do that with people all over the world and all over town, the better equipped they’re going to be to create that job that they’ll have,” she said.

She said when the iPads arrived, the kids immediately knew what to do with them and began showing her things she did not know. They downloaded YouTube videos of the Oak Bluffs School talent show, and changed the background to a picture of the team the iPad is assigned to. Each of the four iPads is assigned a project group; there are four project groups in the class.

Mrs. Hammett said at the beginning of the year, the students were not so confident with technology.

“They have become quite independent in their ability to wrestle with new challenges. That’s been probably the most impressive thing because when they first come in they didn’t know what to do when they didn’t instantly get the result they wanted by clicking on one thing and they would say, ‘I need help, I don’t know what to do.’ Hardly anyone says that anymore because they try different things and figure it out,” the teacher said.

Of course with the new iPads comes a greater responsibility to use their freedom prudently. Mrs. Hammett gave a presentation to class about freedom and responsibility on Tuesday.

“How do third graders have freedom?” she asked. “We talked about how they would have freedom with these iPads and what kind of responsibility they would have to have, so on the notebook [program] they began writing down the rules that they thought they might want to have for using the iPads responsibly.”

The YouTube video that won the grant application can be viewed at youtube.com/watch?v=YgdHD298Hdw.