Another thing previous generations, including mine, were able to do? Go to school the “manual” way. And I say manual because schools in Washington County, Florida are actually using fingerprint scanners to keep track of their students. Instead of the teacher calling out names during roll call, all students have to do is press their thumbs against the machine and they’re good to go.

The scanners have been in place since the beginning of the current school year, but the schools are planning to go a step further by installing the scanners inside school buses to save even more time. It just makes me think, though, that it might be easier for kids to just check in with the scanner and then skip school after stepping off the bus. But that’s just me.

[via PopSci via Dvice]

In all, Yale is spending about $600,000 to provide 520 top-of-the-line iPad 2 3G 64GB tablets to students. The iPads come with the curriculum for first and second year students pre-loaded. The iPad for third and fourth year students come with materials for their chosen specialty. Apparently, the stack of printed materials that goes along with medical school at Yale is enormous after two years and the copied pages don’t do colors that are needed in medical images.

The iPad on the other hand will allow the students to view the material with high-resolution images as well. They can also take advantage of apps that encourage interactive learning. Tablets like the iPad are becoming much more common in the hospital and medical setting so it only makes sense for Yale to move in this direction.

[Yale Daily News via MacWorld]

One of the most interesting ways that I’ve seen to invite people to your house party is to change the name of your Wi-Fi network. This is a probably a good idea if you’re a student living in a dorm. If you simply live in an apartment complex, there’s always the the chance that some crazy person will show up.

All in all, it’s quick and effective, but you probably shouldn’t use it as a default way of inviting people to your party. Sticking to Facebook is probably a good idea. Or, you could use your Wi-Fi network to send passive aggressive messages to your neighbors.

[9GAG via Leetlady]

That statement cracked me up; makes it sound as if the schools in Japan don’t have any say in the matter. But I guess it’s worth a try, to keep kids stay focused on their studies and not on distractions, like gaming.

This isn’t the first time that Nintendo has marketed the Nintendo DS as a learning aid, but a Miyamoto educational game or software? Learning’s about to get a lot more fun.

[via Joystiq]

The whole thing started when a student at Harriton High School in Lower Merion district was called in to see vice principal Lindy Matsko back on November 11, and told that he was “engaged in improper behavior in his home” and cited as evidence a photo captured on his computer by the webcam. The student and his family filed suit against the district, which the FBI got wind of and launched on official probe. The school said the remote activation is a security feature to help recover stolen notebooks.

To put the moron icing on the dumbass cake, the district says that the paperwork the students signed (mostly underage students mind you) to get the school issued notebooks said that the webcams could be activated without prior notification. The parents and families of the students were never notified of the webcam activation clause, henceforth known as the clause of absolute stupidity. Witold Walczak legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said, “This is an age where kids explore their sexuality, so there’s a lot of that going on in the room. This is fodder for child porn.”

Brilliant.

[via Washington Post]

Now you too can embellish your bedroom wall with a constant reminder of exactly how to increase speed, drop down and reverse direction – just in case you need to do that sort of thing for your job.

The guys at Blik Surface Graphics have now turned Neil Gregory’s hilarious A Simple Plan Threadless t-shirt into a set of vinyl wall graphics you can apply to any room. The complete set comes with 43 colorful wall decals, and instructions to build out your Invader army. When it’s all finished, the design measures in at approximately 60″ wide by 45″ tall, and looks great on any wall – although I think it looks best on a dark colored surface.

The set is available now over at Blik for $45 (USD).

The image above shows the attendance-taking app. As you can see students simply enter a 3-digit alphanumeric code to confirm their presence. The iPhone’s GPS helps verify that the student is actually in school when the code is entered. Awesome.

Of course, the school doesn’t want the device to be reduced to an expensive attendance monitor; they’re looking for ways to integrate the iPhone to foster better teacher-student interaction, like viewing videos of class lectures for reviewing or for absent students.

There’s the fear that the GPS-based attendance may lead to privacy issues, but if the response of the people in the video are any indication, there’s a decent chance that Aoyama Gakuin’s high-tech – or is that iTech – system will be emulated by other institutions.

[via Reuters]

The idea is that the pre-chewed pencils will somehow discourage students from chewing on them–because someone’s already been at the wood–and that slight change will magically result in lengthening attention spans, raising grades, and, in all likelihood, curing cancer. Sign me up for a dozen.

Of course, Concentrate never says whether or not the pencils really are pre-chewed, or if it’s artistry only. If they really do retain a posse of gnawers, their plan just might work.

[Concentrate via TechEBlog]

Back in 1983, designer Rob Marquardt (aka ‘someToast’) painstakingly drafted not only the exterior of the stick to show off his mad isometric drawing skills, he went through the trouble of diagramming out all of the gory internals of the classic digital gaming controller.

While it might not be a 100% accurate rendition of the Atari controller, you have to admire his creativity and persistence. His teacher may have graded his work anywhere from A- to B, but I say A++++ all the way!

(P.S. While you’re staring at Rob’s Flickr portfolio, be sure to check out this awesome blueprint iPhone menu skin he designed.)