About

The Challenge: Students carry to and from school more books, notebooks, calendar and other items, than ever before. Not only that there is a potential harm to their body, they learn that books, information and studying is a matter of pain and physical effort.

The Solution: Customized tablet with special software and network connection that will contain all the information currently carried in paper by students from home to school and back.

The Opportunity: reduce dramatically the weight that students carry to school and from it, hence preventing harm to their body and enhancing their learning experience; join the pioneers of the digital school, a potentially trillion dollar market globally.

The Plan: Conducting a one year pilot with 7 grade class in Toronto in order to learn lessons and bring the project to commercialization stage.

Background

For few reasons (traditional education system, copyrights, complexity and more) the digital revolution seems to skip the school system, so far. This is most apparent in the lack of books and other support material digitization and as a consequence, the heavy weight that student carry everyday to school and from it.

This problem is escalating while the students’ progress in grades, as one TDSB 6 grade teacher shared her experience: ‘the back pack weight will just increase in following years’. Few random samples demonstrate that students are carrying back packs that are heavier than the recommend- ed weight for their age and weight.

The main reason for the over-weight - the need to carry text- books for homework. South Korea is leading the global experience in this realm. In the last few years the South Korean government is leading a $2B project to digitize textbooks in the education system. Similar initia- tive exist in Florida as well as a pilot by Samsung in BC, Canada. According to online press reports.

The current trend is led by the government and is less focused on the back pack weight, and more on the digital school potential for progress. Indicators imply that the Digital School is a rapidly emerging market that will be eventually implemented worldwide, including a demand for network infrastructure, software and hardware.

This is a rear and time sensitive opportunity to join this market in its inception and be posed at the forefront of the digital school as a dominant actor.

Nachshon Goltz - Researcher

Nachshon has conducted extensive research in the field of children and technology, published articles in peer reviewed journals and presented his scholarly work in conferences across the globe.

Nachshon is the founder and CEO of Global-Regulation, a research and information provider focusing on empirical case studies and serving, among others, Harvard University, NYU University, the University of Texas, York University, Ottawa University, Ryerson University and the University of Toronto.

As a senior associate in one of Israel's leading law firms, Nachshon consulted information tech- nology corporations and governmental organizations in a variety of technology issues. Among others, Nachshon consulted the Israeli judiciary in the Israeli Court System computerization project, a multi-million dollar project headed by Ness Technologies leading a team of 120 workers representing 10 subcontractors, including IBM, Taldor and Microsoft.

Nachshon is currently completing a PhD degree on children and technology, at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Nachshon completed his LLB and his LLM in Law and Technol- ogy at Haifa University. He also holds a Bachelor in Psychology from Haifa University.

The Pilot Permission and cooperation will be needed from the Toronto District School Board, the sample school principle, the subject and control class, teachers, students and parents.

Research length: May 1, 2014 - April 31, 2015

Stages:

1) Planning and partners coordination (April-July 2014)

▪ Learning lessons from South Korea, Florida and BC, Canada.

▪ Planning the research, explaining the process to the Partners and permissions issuers.

▪ Establishing coordination procedures with the partners and permission issuers.

▪ Infrastructure, software and hardware planning. Starting with the infrastructure to make the subject class high speed WI-FI connected.

▪ Prototype of software-hardware hand held device should be ready by the end of the first stage.

2) Pilot - Phase 1 - Current situation review (August-October, 2014)

➢ Measuring the weight of the back pack of the subject class and parallel control class for one month. The measurement should be invisible, sophisticated and ac- curate. The students backpack will have a device that identify it to the hook on which the student will hang the back pack entering the class. The students will not be aware to the measurement and will be just told to hang the back pack when they arrive and take it with them when they go home.

➢ Measurement of academic and learning skills.

➢ Back pack content list.

3) Pilot - Phase 2 - Enotebook implementation (November-January, 2015)

o The subject class will be wired to high speed Wi Fi.

o students in the subject class will receive the hand held device and at least one week of orientation in a fun environment with their parents.

o The teacher will receive separate guidance and tutoring.

o The students will start using the hand held device to replace carrying textbooks and other paper items from and to school.

4) Pilot - Phase 3 - Comparison with control class (February-March, 2015)

❖ Measurement of satisfaction, achievement, academic and learning skills and back- pack weight between the groups.

5) Conclusions and commercialization (April 2015)

Full report of the findings, lessons and result of the pilot including recommendation for commercialization.