Technology in School By: Julia Powers, Jillian Falduto, Emily Brenner, Celine Vu, Keri Villano, Maky Rupert, Marc Whitman, Vijay Menon, Pragya Thaman

Project Citizen encourages high school students to research and propose ideas that would help the community or education system. Our goal is to promote tablets, laptops, and Laptop-tablets in our schooling system to help strengthen a student’s learning capabilities and study methods. What is Project Citizen?

Option 1: Laptop Standard Aspire Notebook ● Original price: $400 o Discount: $225 ● 15 inch HD Screen ● Windows 8

Pros and Cons of Laptops ProsCons ●Fully sized keyboards help them take notes more efficiently ●Large memory storage/USB compatible ●Best suited for software in school ●Tech support is available if needed-students able to fix on their own too ●Easily able to connect to any projector for projects, presentations, etc ●Can send handouts and presentations directly in class ●Good prep for college education-take notes with lectures, etc ●CD/DVD Drives for educational clips ● Can easily become distracted on the computer ● Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, IM, etc. ● Laptops are difficult to carry in backpacks due to their weight ● They are not accessible with e-books, which allows students to read on their device

Option 2: Tablet Google Nexus 7 ● Original Price: $229 per tablet o After bulk discount and 100,000 school savings: $93 ● Very lightweight and portable for students ● Educational Apps available for cheap prices o ie. Mental Case, Poems by Heart, DragonBox Algebra 12+ and Paper by FiftyThree ● Long lasting battery life compared to the other two options

Pros and Cons of Tablets ProsCons ● Lightweight and more portable ● Convenient and manageable circumstances. ● Ebooks, that are cost much less than regular books, allow students to easily annotate, highlight, and bookmark pages as needed. Replacing school copies with ebooks opens a new realm of note taking for a better learning experience ● Long lasting battery life ● Educational Apps are available to purchase for cheap prices. ● Hands-on access to technology is proven to improve student learning ● Tablets can easily break ● Hard to type on ● Students may be distracted by social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. ● Smaller screen makes it harder to see

Option 3: Laptop-Tablets Upgraded Pavilion Touchsmart ● Original price: $550 per laptop/tablet o After discount and savings: $330 per laptop/tablet

Pros and Cons of Laptop-Tablets Pros ●Students have the option of using a touchscreen keyboard, that allows for easy note taking. ●Attachable keyboards are available for purchase that can allow for even faster typing, elevating the student’s learning capabilities. ●Paper handouts, textbooks, and books would be eliminated and replaced with the tablets, which will make classes more efficient. ●Students can make edits and take notes right on their essays and projects, rather than a printed version. Students would be able to easily connect to a projector to project a presentation or the work for a math problem. ●Teachers can use the touchscreen to make notes and edits on students work and send it back immediately. ●Includes CD/DVD drives and USB ports Cons ●May cause distractions in the classroom. ●Laptop-Tablets may be confusing to navigate at first or require a beginner’s course.

Additional Costs and Expenses ●$50,000 for additional bandwidth ●$50,000 for additional wifi ●-$200,000 for the money we would save on paper and copy machines annually ●Net: +$100,000 ●(courtesy of Business Administrator Rod McLaughlin)

Overall Learning Benefits Implementing a system in which students can bring their personal hands-on technology devices will not only enhance their learning styles, but also expand a student’s capabilities. Integrating our school into the technological world will prepare the student body for college, strengthen note taking techniques, and fortify organizational skills. In a world where technology is ubiquitous, it is important that students evolve to fit societal standards.