Palm Boulevard, a news service for users of Palm PDAs, offered this report on the nifty ways technology improves public education in a D.C.?high school:
Over the past several months Defywire has been deploying its Mobile Guardian system at the school. The system allows school administrators to access student disciplinary information, attendance records, class schedules, medical information and parent contact information over Wi-Fi-enabled PDAs.? …
What does it do? In a nutshell, the high school deployment allows school officials to bust students more efficiently than ever before.
The system lets school officials assess penalties at the point of infraction, so to speak, rather than making the long trip back to the file cabinet.? Well, even though neato technology can streamline federally-mandated record-keeping on disciplinary action — why doesn’t it surprise me that the federal government is involved here? — it seems that the administration still sees parents as obstacles to be overcome, rather than the primary authorities over these kids.
Principal [Daniel] Gohl says the actual [data] security is only half the puzzle. He also must manage the perception of security, assuring parents that confidential information will not go astray.
To that end he has made available case studies from the business community. He has laid out the relevant federal statutes and demonstrated the ways in which the school’s Wi-Fi program complies with those. He also has given hands-on demonstrations showing the ways in which the new technology actually secures information more effectively than do the old paper files.
“Basically, you overwhelm them with technical data,” he said.
Moral:? Same story, same characters, different props.
