June 2006 — Features
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Portable Technology: Media à la Cart
The once-painstaking process of getting audiovisual equipment into the classroom is now a whole lot easier.
THERE WAS A TIME when being a teacher at Lenawee Intermediate School District (MI) meant getting in line—a long line—if you wished to get hold of audiovisual equipment for your class. Teachers had to reserve the equipment weeks in advance. Next, once the time came to use it, representatives from the district’s A/V department had to quite literally schlep it all to the classroom themselves. When instructors were finished with it, they called the A/V guys to come on back and tear the equipment down. Depending on the setup a particular teacher required, the process could take hours. What’s more, it was tedious work—the worst kind of obstacle in a high-pressure environment.
Last year, the arrival of media carts changed the whole
routine. Clustering certain equipment and placing it as a unit on
a refrigerator-sized wheeled cart revolutionized Lenawee’s A/V
delivery system. Yes, teachers
still have to reserve the media,
and yes, A/V technicians still
have to be the ones to transport
it. But with laptops, projectors,
document cameras, televisions,
and VCRs affixed to movable
carts, technicians simply wheel
the equipment into a classroom,
and everything a teacher needs is
right there.
Lucas Wilson, one of the district’s technology support specialists, says the new system makes the entire A/V process more palatable and saves him and his colleagues tons of time. “This isn’t exactly emerging technology or cutting edge, but it brings a lot of different pieces of equipment together and provides easy access to it,” he says, noting that Lenawee now owns three carts in each of its three schools. “Carts in our district have been huge.”
They’ve been huge in many other districts, as well. At a time when media technologies are proliferating like gremlins, an increasing number of elementary and secondary school districts are turning to these wheeled wonders to solve some of their logistical woes. Media cart vendors such as Bretford, Jar Systems, EarthWalk Communications, Hewlett- Packard, and Span all say cart sales have increased in recent years. Carts don’t merely help organize heavy and hard-to-transport equipment; they also provide a tidy solution for storing equipment, not to mention a manageable way to distribute limited resources around a particular school or wing. The best part, of course, is that the carts themselves are relatively inexpensive and frequently come at a discount for those willing to buy enough media to qualify.
