(Orange Beach)

 

Students at Orange Beach Elementary School have 60 new technology tools courtesy of Coastal Baldwin Education Enrichment, Inc. The organization, formerly known as the Alabama Gulf Coast Educational Foundation, voted to fund almost $9,000 to purchase 60 Neo2 boards, software and mobile labs at it February meeting.

“This is the culmination of a year of studying what specific needs we had in first, second and third grades, and which technology would best fit these needs,” OBES Principal Jonathan Ellis said. “Neo2 Boards were chosen to best fit the needs of our classrooms. Teachers and I attended professional development sessions and visited other classrooms in the county to understand this product more and how it would suit us.”

The Neo2 appears to be a computer keyboard with several lines of an LCD screen at the top. According to Ellis, each teacher has a wireless receiver for the boards integrated into their classroom computer, and students send their work directly to the teacher’s computer via the receiver. There is no worry about lost data either because NEO 2 saves students’ work instantly.

Photo by: Clayton Wallace

 

Ellis said the company that produces the Neo2 boards, Renaissance Learning, is the company that produces Accelerated Reader and other programs the school already utilizes. The Neo2 boards integrate with these programs seamlessly. At a March 10 training seminar for OBES teachers, a Renaissance representative also touted keyboarding programs, math programs and interactivity with the Promethean boards – today’s chalk boards - already in classroom use at the school. As a sign of the changing classroom, the boards also allow students to save documents online at Google Docs.

Ellis said the boards are incredibly rugged to withstand virtually any abuse students may inflict on the machine. “When I went to the first professional development seminar on the boards the first thing the presenter did was to throw the machine across the room,” he said. “We all held our breath, but it worked fine after that.”

Ellis said the boards are energy efficient and weigh only two pounds. Three AA batteries can provide up to 700 hours of use, which should be enough for a full school year for most students, and the light weight makes for easy portability from classroom to classroom.

“We were thrilled to be able to fund these boards for the students at Orange Beach Elementary,” CBEE President Mike Diehl said. “Anytime we can give some of our students here on the island an advantage in the classroom, we look at it as a prudent investment in their future.”

Ellis expressed his thanks for the machines to board members. “I want to let the foundation members know how much this means to our teachers and students,” he said. “We had two teachers that implemented the machines into their classrooms even before we had official training. Everyone is thrilled to have them.”

For more information on CBEE, go to their website www.agcaef.com or contact Diehl at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

Last modified on Sunday, 20 March 2011 13:41