By Charlie SHELTON

Last Tuesday, the Glendale Unified School District hosted an IT convention of sorts in the cafeteria of Crescenta Valley High School.  All the best and brightest new teaching technology was onsite including iPad and SMART Boards. Even HP got into the game displaying two tablets, one that runs Android and the other dual boot that runs Android and Windows 7.

The proposed Measure S, a follow up to Measure K of 1997, is Phase 2 of school improvements for GUSD. Among those planned improvements if Measure S passes is a technology upgrade for foothills schools to incorporate some of these and other teaching aids for teachers and students.

The SMART Board, the original high tech white board, has recently released a multi-touch model that allows for easy zooming, highlighting and moving digital things on the board. Also it translates anything written on the board from the written language to any other language the user wants. It can even fix penmanship to look pretty despite human error. For example, if a teacher writes something illegible the board will convert it to Times New Roman so that nobody has to struggle to read the text.

Another cool tech product at the convention was the tablet controller from Digital Edge. The tablet hooks up on PC and Mac to be a mobile computer interface as the teacher demonstrates from anywhere in the classroom. No more being tied to the computer, attached to a projector. The projector can now sit anywhere because the operator need not be at the computer to teach.

To learn about Measure S, visit yes4s.com or scan this link:

  IT Convention, SMART Board