Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Back to School (Bus 2.0)

There is a pilot program in (a) school bus in Arkansas where students are "given" video ipods or laptops on a bus that has a wireless router. Students can access podcasts and online instructional materials while riding the bus. It happens that there are students who ride up to 1.5 hours to and from school! The article goes on to talk more about other online resources that schools are using (think social networking), but I thought this "connected bus" was an example of a novel approach and opportunity for learning and discovery through technology.

At least the students are not driving the bus while downloading a UnitedStreaming video ! I wonder if the driver has online music streamed into the bus? (maybe satellite radio...) I can see students creating daily podcasts for the "ride home".

3 comments:

gxeremio said...

What a great idea to reclaim wasted time and help with behavior management issues on the bus to boot! Too cool!

Richard said...

If they only would have had that when I was a kid. I can remember a 40 min bus ride ---one way.

gxeremio said...

You rode in a BUS? I had to walk to school, in the snow, uphill...errr...how does that go?

No, but seriously, in our area lots of kids have really long bus rides. And of course field trips and activity buses often see kids on long bus rides too.