School’s Half A Million
By: Christopher Lamers
Marry Jo, Round, an 8th grade
teacher at Play Ground Middle School
in Sunny View, California. The middle
school she works at has won half a
million dollars in the technology of their
choice. They have chosen many pieces
of technology from many different
brands. Here are some of their largest
choices.
Samsung Smart School is a new
way of learning in a collaborative and
technology based classroom. Samsung
Smart School consists of a wireless
printer, an 85 inch stunning HD
touchscreen TV meant to act like a
whiteboard for the teacher to draw on.
They also have a Samsung Galaxy Note
10.1 tablet for each student. The
students can collaborate with each other
between tablets as well as wirelessly
share with the class what they learned
by screen mirroring their tablet on the
85 inch TV. The intuitive touch screen
stylus pen allows you to draw on the
tablets built in SNote app. Your palm
will not be recognized in the SNote app
when the SPen is out. It’s smarter than
an iPad in my opinion. Your class of 30
students could use this product for a
rising price of about $22,000. But, who
knows? Maybe it’s worth it. They plan
on using this TV to show work in class
so the teacher can explain topics and
draw on it like a whiteboard. The
teacher can also save documents, surf
the web, and pull up videos for class.
Dell XPS 18 Touchscreen All-inOne is the PC of choice for Play Ground
Middle School. It is an all-in-one
computer which means the monitor and
the tower are all combined in the
monitor. It comes complete with a
wireless keyboard and mouse to make it
a cordless and easy use item. This PC
can be used on a semi-permanent stand
or on 2 foldable legs so that it can be
moved around and easily taken home or
use outside the classroom. It’s a deep
price at $999.00 per PC. It’s about
$30,000 for each student to have one
available to them at one time. These PC
tablets will be used by each student on a
daily basis for class. They can use this
for special computer programs and for
other collaborative learning when in a
group.