Elementary school students in a west Georgia county are test-driving a new digital tablet. It is a seven-inch tablet called an ePortal. Selling at less than $100, you can call it bare-bones: it has a cardboard cover and does not come with any built-in content.
And that is one of the selling points according to Bob Patrick. His Atlanta-based company, MXN Corporation, is developing the ePortal. Even though the ePortal is Wi-Fi based, students can’t just go Googling around on it.
And Patrick says school systems don’t have to buy content: they can create their own. “The school system, even down to the individual teacher, decides what content is presented to the student,” said. Patrick. “And they just pin the application, the links, and the content to the students’ landing pages, and there it is.”An audio version of this story
Three fifth grade classes in Haralson County are using ePortals for the next few weeks. Marty Bray is the school system’s chief technology officer. He says the tablets do not require a lot of tech support, and he likes that. He’s now getting feedback from teachers and students. “So far everything has gone very well and especially considering that it’s a pilot and we’re testing this out and seeing what the issues are, I’ve been very pleased so far,” said Bray.
9(MDAxODM0MDY4MDEyMTY4NDA3MzI3YjkzMw004))
