What period is it? Let me check my phone

The Center for Advanced Technology is a great program at Lakewood Senior High School in Florida. Students in this program learn and use technology in interesting ways. These students help develop applications that help the school function better. Earlier this week Lou Zulli, the award winning teacher who teaches Applied Computer Technologies and Emergent Computer Technologies at CAT, let me know about his student’s latest project. Smart Phone apps that help students keep track of their school assignments, time in a way that is relevant to students (i.e.. what period is it) and more. Available for use by students and parents it is tied into the school’s SharePoint system.

CATNIP Mobile is an application for the students enrolled at the Center for Advanced Technologies Program at Lakewood High School and their parents. This app allows the user to see the current bell schedule and how many minutes are left in class. It also displays any assignments that teachers have added to their CATNIP2013 MySite calendars. Just tap on an assignment to view its details. These assignments are filtered by teacher.

I know that a lot of schools forbid phones of any sort in school but these apps make the phones a serious resource for students. Let’s face it a list of assignments on a student’s smart phone are a lot less likely to be lost than those written on a notebook buried in the bottom of a book bag.

If you want to get an idea what these applications are like you can see some previews of the various versions.

The links are:

WP7:   http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/catnip-mobile/55723bfc-94b3-4247-b52e-35a58ed1ef25

iOS:    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/catnip-mobile/id560540569?mt=8

Android:   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cat.catnip.mobile

More about CAT

The Center for Advanced Technologies is a public school magnet program housed at Lakewood Senior High School, located in the southernmost part of Pinellas County, on the west coast of Florida. Curricular offerings within the Center include mathematics, science, computer education, multimedia applications and research; other coursework is completed within Lakewood Senior High School. The Center opened its doors in August, 1990 to a class of eighty-five freshmen; each year an additional class of approximately one hundred fifty students is added. The enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year is approximately four-hundred fifty, grades nine through twelve, with 100% of the students planning to attend college. Funding for the program came from a variety of sources: Pinellas County Public Schools, local corporations and partnerships. Last year, Newsweek magazine ranked the CAT Program 24th in the nation!