Yesterday morning I was half listening to NPR news about students at the Univ. of Iowa monitoring their laundry via web-cam. Having spent many hours in my pre-washer-ownership days, this sounded like a very practical use of technology. Then the news reporter went on to say that another school was using fingerprint identification to let students access their accounts to pay for meals. Thoughts sprang to mind of a large university getting a grant to do this. I stopped dead in my tracks when they said the school was in Omaha, Arkansas.
They must have meant Omaha, Nebraska, right? But no. I went to the web site and it was Omaha, Arkansas. (So....? Big deal!... What's your problem you might ask?) Well, it's the public school I attended and graduated from... with a class size of 13. By anyone's standard that is SMALL. It's also rural (less so now that Branson, MO, the next wide spot in the road north of Omaha, has decided to give Nashville a run for its money). Had something happened to suddenly cause Omaha School to explode in population?
I went hunting on the web for the local paper (from Harrison the next wide spot to the south... I told you Omaha was small). According to them the Omaha cafeteria during the 2 hour serving time was a "beehive of activity" serving about 560 - that's K-12 plus staff. (Many NY schools serve thousands so that seems rather small. However, it definitely indicates the school population has grown since I went to school there). I guess a small problem to some, is a big problem for others. Of course the bottom line is cost. How pricey was this fingerprinting account system? $375 That's cheaper than a computer. I'm surprised other schools haven't caught on.
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