West Michigan Business Review

Tablets can help the tech-challenged get connected

I came home recently to find my lovely, tech-challenged wife had a new slate computer. My wife is smart — a teacher, a former business owner and a school board member. But she does not go out and buy technology.

The school district had had a brainstorm that addressed the lack of security inherent in schlepping pre-meeting packets to all of its board members and leaving them on the porch where any Tom, Dick or dog could pick it up, and the cost of printing these weighty tomes that were usually out of date by the time of the meeting.

The district bought a bunch of inexpensive (they’re available as low as $99) tablets, and handed them to its board members. The district had modified the tablets, so they do nothing but provide and update board packets and information. The tablets wake up and search for a wireless network when new packet information is uploaded, so board members know when to check in.

So now my lovely, tech-challenged wife, bingo-bango, uses nothing but the finger she’s usually wagging at me to flip through the pages of a PDF to keep up with her school-board business, and she’s ready to rock and roll come meeting night.

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