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PrintParent to Parent: Making the Grade: Gadgets
Along with notebooks and rulers, kids are using high tech tools to tackle their schoolwork.
"It's a personalized tutor that literally fits right in the palm of your hand," Leapfrog representative, Amanda Teitler, said.
This computer pen copies your notes right from this special notebook onto your computer.
"What's great about the pen you can upload all of your notes and have them turn into Microsoft Word documents or emailable documents," Teitler said.
And that's not all...the pen is also a Spanish tutor!
Inside a special notebook kids can take a study break and use the computer pen to activate a built in MP3 player and play on a piano keyboard.
When it's time for class kids can put down their pens and record their lesson with this new voice recorder made especially for Ipods.
"And then go back and either re-listen to it on the Ipod, load it onto their computer for storage longer term or they can email it to a friend," Staples representative, Andrew Schneider, said.
For students on the go--the Internet is one of the best high tech tools. Now there's a wireless Internet detector that makes it easy to find hotspots.
"This allows them to quickly detect a signal and the strength of that signal without having to fire up their laptop, waiting for it to boot up and determine if the signal will work or not," Schneider said.
And if getting to toy with all of this technology isn't enough to get sleepy students out of bed in the morning, this new alarm clock will. The alarm on wheels was invented at MIT and went on sale for the first time this year.
It wheels away after one hit of the snooze button - forcing your child to get out of bed and find it to turn off the alarm.
But remember--all these gadgets can be great - but only when they're in the right hands.
"The technology isn't an end in itself. The teacher in the classroom, the parent in the home...These are the people that are really going to make education happen," Peabody High School principal, Ed Sapienza, said.
An important lesson is to help your hi-tech kids make the grade!
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