High Cost High Tech

High-cost high-tech
Sent to sunnews.com, Oct 2, 2009

If students miss school, Macedonia Middle School loans them a bracelet that contains the day's lesson downloaded from a SMART Board ("Make-up school work goes high-tech," Oct 1). The students can then transfer the lessons onto their home computer.
We are told that the school has ten bracelets, which cost $300 each.

In other words, somebody took a $25 flash drive, made an expensive bracelet out of it, sold ten of them to a naïve school, and even managed to get a free ad for this over-priced gadget in the newspaper.

Stephen Krashen



Posted on Thu, Oct. 01, 2009
The Sunnews.com (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Make-up school work goes high-tech

Bracelet With day's Lesson Plan Computerized
By Diane Knich

The Post and Courier
When a student missed a day of school, teachers used to send home books and papers for make-up work. But at Macedonia Middle School, they may instead send a small, flexible bracelet with a computer file that contains the day's lesson from the teacher's Smart Board.

Chris Matthews, Macedonia Middle's media specialist, said one end of the SMART Notebook SE bracelet has prongs that hook into a computer's USB port.  A teacher or student can download a lesson from her interactive, electronic whiteboard onto the bracelet. Students can then access the lesson from their home computers. Children who don't have computers at home will get their make-up work the old-fashioned way, she said.  "Students love them," Matthews said of the bracelets, which the school began using this year. "They love anything that has to do with technology."

Macedonia Middle Principal Janie Langley said one of the rural school's priorities is to provide students with technology. Knowledge about how to use technology is important for success in the future, she said. The bracelets contain SMART software, she said, so students can use them to look at PowerPoint presentations, quizzes and study guides. Students are excited about using the bracelets, she said. "And anytime you get a child motivated, that's a success." Matthews said the school purchased 10 bracelets for about $300 apiece. They are available for students and teachers to check out from the library. In addition to catching up on work they missed, students can use the bracelets for remedial work and extra academic practice.

Macedonia Middle is the only Berkeley County school currently using the bracelets. No schools in Dorchester use them. The technology club at Charleston County's Drayton Hall Elementary School is pilot-testing them now.  Matthews said the number of students with a computer at home, or access to a computer outside of school, is growing. And the school provides access to as much technology as possible during the school day. The school has about five computer labs, and there's a Smart Board in all the classrooms, she said.
"It's another tool in the toolbox to provide children educational opportunities," Langley said.