PDF It Isn't Just Another Laptop - NAESP

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mark dickenson

It Isn't Just Another Laptop

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. schoolchildren are using Neos in the classroom in place of laptop and desktop computers, and many teachers--myself included--are praising these devices for their ease of use, price, and benefits to instruction.

But what, you may ask, is a Neo? It is not exactly a laptop computer, although many people often mistake it for one at first glance. Rather, it is a portable word processor with an LCD display. Because of its small size and light weight, students can take it just about anywhere--the library to take notes, the school's garden to record scientific data, or home to complete assignments. It runs on three AA batteries, and has an infrared beamer that allows you to beam text from Neo to Neo or from Neo to the printer.

What isn't a Neo? It isn't a laptop with access to the Internet. This has its benefits for a classroom teacher. The machines turn on instantly and students can begin working without waiting for the devices to start up and without entering a username and password. There also aren't the distractions of Web sites, games, and drawing programs. Instead, students stay on task.

The machines can be purchased in a set of 30 with a portable cart and a hub, which controls the Neo's SmartApplets,

or programs and functions. The hub allows teachers to send to or collect information from all 30 Neos in a few clicks from a computer. Among the programs is Keywords, a key-

54 Principal n January/February 2007

boarding tutorial that teaches proper fingering and tracks student progress; AlphaQuiz, which downloads quizzes for students to take without pencil and paper; and AlphaWord for basic word processing. Using the download manager software, which controls all 30 Neos connected to the hub, teachers can use a computer to send and retrieve files.

Another plus for Neos is that they come without the laptop price tag. A set of 30 with the cart, hub, infrared printer, and software come delivered to your school for less than $8,000. A mobile lab of 30 laptops can cost more than $21,000.

"It is not exactly a laptop computer, although many people mistake it for one at first glance. Rather, it is a portable word processor with an LCD display."



Transforming Classroom Instruction At Flint Hill Elementary School in

Fairfax County, Virginia, students have used AlphaSmarts and AlphaSmart 3000s for years. They were helpful to special education teachers for a few students at a time, but classroom teachers found the cables and unloading to a PC or Mac very cumbersome and timeconsuming. The Neo has changed all that. With the hub, a teacher can download and upload files from all 30 devices in a couple of minutes. The infrared technology allows students to go to the printer, point, and press "print." The students' writing prints in seconds without having to use any cables or computers. I love this feature!

As a fifth-grade teacher who prepares students for the state writing test, I find the download manager essential to my language arts instruction. For example, I can type a paragraph that needs editing in a word-processing program on my laptop computer and download the file to the Neos using the download

manager. Students can use their Neos to upload and revise the paragraph, and then easily print their revisions once they're done.

My favorite program is AlphaQuiz. I began using it six years ago and it has changed the way I teach. I can write multiple-choice, true/false, and shortanswer questions using the program, and download them to students' Neos. After the students take the quiz on their Neos, they plug them back into the hub, where I upload their responses and the program grades the quizzes. I can print a variety of reports, including student performance by question, mean scores, and most-often missed questions. These reports not only help me assess my students' performance, but the way I deliver instruction. I use these quizzes as preassessments for compacted instruction, review for unit tests, and as reviews before our state testing program.

In addition, my fifth-grade students use Keywords several times a week. The reports that are compiled, which

show student performance by words per minute and errors, have illustrated a marked improvement in the typing ability of students since we introduced the Neo.

Neos have transformed my classroom. They have modernized the way I teach all curriculum areas, not just writing. More important, the benefits to student learning are enormous. Students who struggled to write three sentences in a paragraph, wrestled to hold a pencil, or are stumped at generating topics for writing are now excited about the writing process. Students who are identified as gifted and talented use the Neo as a tool to create and enhance projects. My fifth-grade students are not just learning keyboarding skills with the Neo; they are discovering how technology can unlock their potential. P

Mark Dickenson is a fifth-grade teacher at Flint Hill Elementary School in Vienna, Virginia. His e-mail address is mark. dickenson@fcps.edu.

The Better Laptop for Schools--and the Perfect Writing Tool

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H ow many laptops can fit easily inside a backpack and stand up to the kind of abuse that your students can dish out? How many laptops can run for 700 hours or more on just three AA batteries? How many laptops are so easy to use and affordable that you can put one into the hands of every student?

Introducing Neo from AlphaSmart. At just a shade over 2 lbs., Neo is small enough to go from classroom to classroom, on field trips, or

virtually anywhere you see an opportunity for learning. And while traditional laptops offer Internet, games, instant messaging, and other programs that can distract students from learning, Neo contains only programs that help teachers accelerate learning.

Take a closer look at Neo today and discover for yourself why this affordable, portable writing tool is being hailed as "the better laptop for schools."



For a FREE Information Packet simply call toll free

(888) 274-0680,

ref #9174 (outside U.S. 1-715-424-3636).

Or visit Neo online at neo/principal

Renaissance LearningTM 2911 Peach Street ? Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494

Principal n January/February 2007 55

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