Florida School Participates in Tablet PC Pilot Program

Florida School Participates in Tablet PC Pilot Program (T.H.E. Newsletter)

The versatile tablet PC made its way into the hands and backpacks of seventh-graders at Ocoee Middle School in Orange County, Fla., this fall in a first-ever pilot program designed to test the effectiveness of the tablet PC combined with a Web-based curriculum, one-to-one computing and full-time Internet access.

The yearlong project is a joint effort between Hewlett-Packard, which provided the tablet PCs; Microsoft, which contributed its Class Server 3.0; and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, which provided electronic textbook resources. This program is remarkable because, according to George Warren, director of K-12 education marketing at HP, "the tablet PC has the potential to replace the desktop and the notebook in the future."

OMS was chosen for this program because of its well-known reputation as the technologically advanced Florida demonstration school. As part of the SMART Schools Initiative, OMS has had the opportunity to test different technology innovations in the past, but never to the extent of this pilot program. … For the full story, visit www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4552.cfm .