Five minutes before the bus arrives, a child sits glued to the television, waiting for the news anchor to announce a school closing. In school later that day, the teacher attempts to teach a math lesson on a groaning projector that barely works. Finally, at lunch, students wait in long lines as they scramble to find enough change to pay for their lunches.
                These are scenarios most teachers and students have experienced during their school years. Due to recent technical advancements, however, Revere High School has moved closer towards eliminating these frustrating, outdated technologies. Through various conferences and conversations, staff members have learned of new technologies and have implemented them at Revere.
                The most student-interactive of these new technologies, the SMART Board, made its way into the district several years ago. Currently, most of the high school’s classrooms have SMART Boards. Computer teacher Laurie Stover has actively participated in the district’s integration of SMART Boards. 
                "[SMART boards] actually started out at Bath and Hillcrest because there was a citizens’ group here that provided money for the SMART Boards because they felt the high school usually received the technology. It started out at the elementary school, and then it moved to the middle school, and then it moved to the high school," Stover said. 
                Before the entire school started using SMART Boards, former Science teacher Jeffrey Gibson experimented with this technology in his own classroom.
                "Once he finished a presentation, Mr. Gibson would convert his class notes into a PDF [file] and put it on his web page for students to view. He did this for all of his biology classes," Stover said
                This and other practical uses of the SMART Board caused the Math Department to receive this new technology approximately four years ago. The rest of the academic departments followed in their footsteps and received SMART Boards as well. Originally using the Interwright Boards, the school upgraded to the SMART Board because of the wider range of tools the latter possessed. 
                "The math classes received this technology [first] because of the interactive nature of them. Math teachers could use the SMART Board to show levels and steps or geometric shapes. Math teachers don’t lecture about math, they display it," Stover said.
                SMART Board customer support specialist Sylvie Arseneault says the company has noticed that several other schools, specifically elementary schools, have begun to use SMART Boards as well. She feels this is more beneficial than a chalkboard or dry erase board. 
                "As budget allows, the schools have increasingly been purchasing more and more of our products. [The SMART Board] allows students and teachers to be more interactive within the classroom. Students seem to want to participate more in the classroom when they have the option of using the SMART Board," Arseneault said. 
                Stover feels the SMART Board also helps teachers adapt to various students’ learning styles. 
                "It’s much more than just a board to write on. A lot of students aren’t lecture-oriented but are more visual learners, whether it be a video or visual that helps with different learning styles. The SMART Board is more visual and has a broader display of tools to teach with," Stover said. 
                Many teachers have expressed the positive difference SMART Boards have made in their classes. 
                "Once teachers start using SMART Boards and the system goes down for whatever reason, it’s like tying their hands behind their back," Stover said. 
                Despite the ease SMART Boards have allowed teachers, they have also required training for usage, just like any other technology. Stover, who taught herself about SMART Boards, holds four annual sessions to teach teachers how to use them.
                "The first session is a refresher class. After that we talk about how to find materials on the Smart Board, like different tools and good resources to use," Stover said.
                During these lessons, Stover also offers information on the annual advancements that accompany the school’s yearly purchases of SMART Boards. These purchases, originally funded through grants, are now funded through technology funds. Every year, the school chooses a different department to receive new SMART Boards.
                "Teachers also get SMART Boards through teacher requests and by what is left over," Stover said. 
                Technological advancements have not only benefitted staff and students in the classroom. The new lunch system, implemented this past fall, has been an improvement according Principal Bill Adams. Revere waited until students received identification [ID] cards to adopt the new system, but it was well worth the wait.
                "The new lunch system is a lot more streamlined and effective in following transactions easily. The ladies were going nuts trying to handle everyone’s money," Adams said. 
                The student ID’s are what keep the system running. 
                "It’s the bar codes [that students use to] swipe cards. It’s not supposed to be a credit card. They’re supposed to act as debit cards," Adams said. 
                Aside from these two areas of school technology, Revere has also worked on adopting systems for alerting parents, students, and staff. Added to the district last fall, the Alert Now phone system, provided by Saf-T-Net, allows the administrators to send out information quickly. Computer Technology teacher Ryan Lekan manages this system. 
                "This system allows the district to quickly notify many thousands of phone numbers in a matter of minutes. In the event of an emergency, we can be assured that most people on the system will receive accurate information," Lekan said. 
                The system is not used only for emergencies. It also alerts parents to meetings and grading periods, as well as school cancellations. This, however, can be a negative thing.
                "Once someone hears the Alert Now message, they automatically think there’s a snow day," Adams said. 
                A few of the other quirks the phone system possesses, besides getting students’ hopes up, mainly revolve around answering machines. Because it is an automated system, the message the answering machine records may have a speaking delay, and these messages are often erased. Some answering machines do run long enough to tape the full message. The system, however, has proved mainly positive.
                "We make it a point to look into technologies that will help us better communicate with parents and students," Lekan said. 
                To maintain this communication with parents and the community Lekan also revamped the district’s website. 
                "We are using tools developed by SchoolWires to develop our site, along with a content management system that they host called Centricity. I worked closely with the employees at SchoolWires to learn how their development tools worked and used these skills to implement our new site," Lekan said.
                Lekan has started training staff members in updating the site with any relevant news to specified pages, allowing parents and students to access classroom information and study tools. 
                "The [Parent Teacher Association] posts meeting minutes. Coaches are beginning to post more information on their sites. We will continue to train more staff members so they will be able to contribute as well," Lekan said. 
                Lekan also redesigned the site to simplify user navigation and make important information more readily available. 
                "We have a search tool that uses Google to search our site for information," Lekan said.
                In addition to the search tool, the site contains many other features as well, which have garnered positive feedback.
                "The site has a flash photo gallery, which allows the district to post pictures of all the great activities happening in our schools. The calendar is more robust, allowing us to post more information about events. We have built in RSS feeds, so users can pull information from our site in an RSS reader," Lekan said.