Digital Divisions

Smartphone program connecting kids facing cuts

A North Carolina school district partnered with Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach Initiative and Arlington, Virg., based Digital Millennial Consulting to provide some 9th graders smart-phones with internet access in a pilot program. The K-Nect Program, as it’s called, is an attempt to address three issues at once: Getting at risk kids access to the Internet, educating them on technology use and improving thier math scores.

How to cell phones improve math scores?

Well it looks like the consulting group associated with the project developed some custom software that allows teachers to send the kids math questions, which they can solve by themselves or with help from other classmates through peer-to-peer technology.

However it looks like the program is in trouble. According to an article on an NBC affiliate’s website, NBC17 in Raleigh, the funding is set to run out in June. The director of the project and of the Digital Millenial Consulting group, Shawn Gross, ‘pleaded’ with the state board of education for more funding, which will be matched 100 percent by private sources, according to the article.

And from the article, it looks like the smart phones are popular among the students and might actually be teaching them math.

Now if only I could get my smart phone to stop crashing…