Greetings!
By now, many of you have written and had grants fulfilled or
nearly fulfilled and I know there are many more who
are interested. Some of the most coveted items are document cameras,
projectors and laptops and of course interactive whiteboard systems.
For those of
you who do not feel you are as tech saavy as you wish you were, or soon will be, I would like to offer a few tips for selecting items that will be exactly what you're looking for without exceeding that $400 budget sweet spot.
1.
Laptops - If you're like me, a laptops is at the top of your list of needs for classroom connectivity. With the dusty old models we're working on, it's amazing email even circulates around the school! Keeping that $400 limit in mind, many
of you will be looking to find the cheapest laptops possible to place on your
grants - and this is good thinking - but make sure your know what it is you want
from that laptop!
If it will mainly be for student use, then any size would be appropriate, but if you
want to use it as a main part of a projection ensemble, I
would suggest looking for one that is between 14 and 15.6 inch
screens as this size of lap top will still include a DVD drive - something you
may not think you would miss - until it's unavailable! In addition, a lot
of the materials you may receive requires installing software; this
is more difficult without the disk drive. Bust Buy has a some decent 15.6 inch laptops
on their site for about $300 - 400 dollars and would serve the daily needs of your class. Also, one of the better processors for an economy laptop would be the Intel
Pentium for speed and reliability.
2.
Projectors -
of all the items I would avoid going cheap on, this is probably the one! Cheaper projectors will have lower levels of luminescence and shorter
bulb life ( I have learned this the hard way ). A good
buy is either Vivetek or Epson. You can find some of these are 300 - 400
dollars. An excellent quality for the price. If your unsure which model to purchase, check out the Product Specs. Anything over a 2000 ANSI lumens
ought to be good to go.
3.
Document Cameras - Be very CAREFUL when choosing these! There are a ton
of different models at a broad range of prices - for a reason! The
cheaper versions, for the most part, are cheaper because they requre
hookup through a laptop USB rendering them useless unless you have a laptop to
go along. However, if a laptop is not a problem laptop then order away!
One of the
cheaper laptop required Document Cameras which is also filled with techno awesomeness is the AverMedia Avervision U10. At Best Buy it is just 190 bucks -
pretty awesome huh?
If, however, you
are looking for a Document Camera that is not reliant on a laptop, the Dukane
Digital Document Camera 101 is just 339.00 through School Specialty, and
has a nice flexible goose neck on it for easy adjustment.
Now, the
more expensive the camera is, the more likely it is to be stand alone - but READ carefully! If the specs. say the connectivity is USB, then it requires a laptop. VGA connectivity does
not.
4.
SmartBoards and other Interactive Items - Okay, as far as these go, you can
find your traditional Smartboard, which we all know and love through Kaplan
Early Learning now - the cheapest model coming in around $1200. However,
if you are open to some alternatives, there are some other
things available which will cost less and will most likely be
funded quicker. Just last week I received my Mimio Interactive which
was priced at just under $600 dollars through CDW. I have to say, my class is loving it! The Mimio is a small strip that attaches to your regular dry erase board or
any other hard surface. Just press the calibration button and
VIOLA! your board is now interactive! It is highly portable and easy
to set up. The only superiority I see that SMART has over Mimio is the fact that
you can activate SMART with touch and the Mimio requires using a stylus. I also discovered, as I suspected, if you have computers
with the Smart software already installed, you CAN use SMART lessons on
the Mimio as long as the Mimio tool bar is activated. Pretty cool huh?
Okay so now
that I have just let out of the bag how much of a techno dork I really am, I
hope that everyone has found this little ditty useful and informative.
For further questions and comments about materials you are writing grants for, feel free to email me!
To the Digital Nation of Wayne County and Beyond (both natives and immigrants alike) TaTa!
I am writing this letter in order to ask a huge favor from anyone who may be able to help! I have recently written and submitted some
grants through a website called DonorsChoose.org
which helps to get teachers materials and equipment they need/want for their
classrooms. 
