Spartanburg Charter School has won the first-ever “Go Back to School SMART”competition, capturing a technology prize worth nearly $6,000.
“We hope this supercharges your new school year,” Rexrode said, “and supports Spartanburg Charter School’s continuing work for educational excellence.”
Spartanburg Charter School came out on top in the statewide “Go Back to School SMART” contest with strong online voting. Manning Early Childhood Center in Manning placed second and St. Andrews School of Math and Science in Charleston came in third. Those schools win smaller technology packages.
Voting took place through the South Carolina Future Minds Facebook page, where other contests and opportunities for the state’s public schools are routinely posted.
This is the second statewide contest Spartanburg Charter School has won in the past year. Last fall, Spartanburg Charter School was one of 20 schools around the nation to win $500,000 based on a popular vote.
“We’re blessed to have very supportive, very engaged and very active parents,” von Rohr said. “They’re critical to the success of any great school.”
For their victory, Spartanburg Charter School will receive
Class set of SMART Response interactive response system: The SMART Response interactive response system is available in four unique models to suit a variety of learning environments, such as 1:1, K-12, early education, special needs and advanced math and science. Each model gives teachers the ability to instantly track quiz results and lesson comprehension to gain immediate insight into student learning and help increase overall retention and engagement. Retail value is $6,000. www.smarttech.com/response
For its second place finish, Manning Early Childhood Center receives
SMART Document Camera: The SMART Document Camera™ offers a convenient way to display and explore images of objects anytime without losing the momentum of your lesson. The document camera’s seamless integration with SMART Notebook collaborative learning software allows educators to capture images and instantly add them to a SMART Notebook page. It also features 3D and Mixed Reality capabilities with specific content in Notebook or from 3rd party sources such as Google 3D Warehouse. Retail value is $800. www.smarttech.com/doccam
For its third place finish, St. Andrews School of Math and Science will receive
SMART Notebook Math: Create, explore and evaluate math concepts with SMART Notebook™ Math Tools. This add-on to SMART Notebook collaborative learning software combines all the tools needed to teach math concepts and solve equations in a single application. It keeps everything accessible, so that shapes, measurement tools, graphs and tables can be easily incorporated into lesson activities. Retail value is $500. www.smarttech.com/notebookmath
Here’s how the program worked:
From Sept. 1 through midnight of Sept. 22, anyone could go to the “South Carolina Future Minds” Facebook page and nominate their school for the SMART Technologies prize package. The 10 schools with the most nominations became the contest’s finalists – and were eligible for the prizes
Then, from Sept. 26 until Oct. 7, votes were taken through the “South Carolina Future Minds” Facebook page to determine the winners. The top three schools with the most votes each receive a package from SMART Technology.